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CONTENTS. 



SERMON" I. 

THE WOEKS OF DARKNESS AND THE AEMOE OF LIGHT. 
Rom. xii. 12. 13. 

PAOB 

The night is far spent, the day is at hand : let us therefore cast 
off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of 
light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day .... 1 

SERMON n. 

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S AO- 
CESSION. 

Isaiah xxxiii. 5, 6. 
He hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness ; and wis- 
dom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy time . . 12 

sermon nr. 

CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 
Acts xxiv. 24, 25. 
And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, 
which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concern- 

(iii) 



hi 



CONTENTS. 



ing the faith in Christ. And as he reasoned of righteousness, 
temperance, and judgment to come, Pelix trembled, and an- 
swered, Go thy way for this time ; when I have a convenient 
season, I will call for thee 22 



SERMON IV. 

THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 

St. John xx. 29. 
Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen Me, thou hast be- 
lieved : blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have be- 
lieved 35 

SERMON Y. 

THE COATS OP SKINS. 
Gen. iii. 21. 

Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of 
skins, and clothe them 48 

SERMON VI. 

THE SLAVERY OF SIN. 
John viii. 34. 

Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of of sin 58 



SERMON VII. 

THE ANGELS' HYMN. 
Luke ii. 13, 14. 

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heav- 
enly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the high- 
est, and on earth peace, good-will toward men . . 67 



CONTENTS. 



V 



SERMON VIII. 

ST. STEPHEN. 

PAGE 

Acts vii. 59, 60. 

And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord 
Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with 
a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when 
he had said this, he fell asleep 78- 

SERMON IX. 

THE CALL OUT OF EGYPT. 

Matt. ii. 15. 

Out of Egypt have I called my Son 88 

SERMON X. 

THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOYE. 
Matt. xxvi. 8. 

To what purpose is this waste ? 98 

SERMON XI. 

THE WATCH AGAINST SINS OF THE TONGUE. 

Psalm xxxix. 1. 
I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my 
tongue 109 

SERMON XII. 

COUNTING THE COST. 
Luke xiv. 28-33. 
Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first 
and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it ? 
Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to 
finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man 
began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, 
going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first 



vi 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet 
him that cometh against him with twenty thousand ? Or else, 
while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, 
and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he 
be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my 
disciple ..... .... 119 

SERMON XIII. 

RESIST THE DEVIL, AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU. 

James iv. 1. 

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you 131 

SERMON XIV. 

LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 
Matt. 43-45. 
And He came and found them asleep again : for their eyes were 
heavy. And he left them, and went away again, and prayed 
the third time, saying the same words. Then cometh He to 
his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your 
rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is 
betrayed into the hands of sinners 144 

SERMON XV. 

CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 

John i. 29. 

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Be- 
hold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
world . . . 155 

SERMON XVI. 

THE KEYS OF DEATH AND OF HELL. 

SBaster 39ag. 
Rev. i. It, 18. 

And He laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear 
not ; I am the first and the last : I am He that liveth, and was 



CONTEXTS. Vll 



PAGB 

dead ; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen ; and have 
the keys of hell and of death 172 



SERMON XVII. 

SCRIPTURE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER. 
John v. 39. 

Search the Scriptures 182 

SERMON XVIII. 

ELIJAH'S TRANSLATION AND CHRIST'S ASCENSION. 

gscrnsion Bag. 
2 Kings ii. 11. 

And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, be- 
hold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and 
parted them both asunder • and Elijah went up by a whirlwind 
into heaven 193 



SERMON XIX. 

CHRIST RECEIVING GIFTS FOR MEN. 

Psalm lsviii. 18. 
Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led captivity captive : 
Thou hast received gifts for men ; yea, for the rebellious also, 
that the Lord G-od might dwell among them .... 204 



SERMON XX. 

THE HOLY TRINITY IN RELATION TO OUR PRAYERS. 

Rev. iv. 8. 

And they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord 
God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come . . . 214 



viii 



CONTENTS. 



SERMON XXI. 

ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. 

Ephes. iv. 4. 

PAGE 

There is one body, and one Spirit 227 

SERMON XXII. 

ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL HAVELOCK. 

Acts x. 1, 2. 

A centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man, 
and one that feared God 238 



SERMON XXIII. 

GOD SEARCHING OUT OUR IDOLS. 
Psalm xliv. 21 (Prayer-Book version). 
If we have forgotten the name of our God, or holden up our 
hands to any strange god, shall not God search it out? for He 
knoweth the very secrets of the heart 249 



SERMON XXIY. 

THE GROANS OF CREATION. 
Rom. viii. 19-23. 
For the earnest expectation of the creature vvaiteth for the mani- 
festation of the sons of God. For the creature was made sub- 
ject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath 
subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also 
shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the 
glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the 
whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain together until 
now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the 
first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within our- 
selves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our 
body ....... .... 260 



CONTENTS. IX 

SERMON" XXV. 

ST. PAUL THROUGH THE LAW DEAD TO THE LAW. 

Gal. ii. 19. 

Page 

I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto 
God 212 

SERMON XXYI. 

THE DUTY OF ABHORRING EVIL. 
Kom. xii. 9. 

Abhor that which is evil . 284= 

SERMON XXVII. 

CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM. 
Luke xix. 41, 42. 
And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over 
it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy 
day, the things which belong unto thy peace ! but now they 
are hid from thine eyes . . . . ... 294 

SERMON XXVIII. 

THRONGING CHRIST, AND TOUCHING CHRIST. 
Mark v. 30, 31. 

And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that virtue had gone 
out of Him, turned Him about in the press, and said, Who 
touched my clothes ? And his disciples said unto Him, Thou 
seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest Thou, Who 
touched Me ? 304 

SERMON XXIX. 

CHRIST'S PRATERS, AND THEIR LESSON FOR US. 
Luke v. 16. 

And He withdrew Himself into the wilderness, and prayed . 314 



X 



CONTENTS. 



SERMON XXX. 

THE LONG-SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 

Psalm xviii. 35. 

PAGE 

Thy gentleness hath made me great 324 

SERMON XXXI. 

DAVID'S SIN, REPENTANCE, PARDON, AND PUNISHMENT. 

2 Samuel xii. 13, 14. 
And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. 
And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away 
thy sin ; thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed 
thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to 
blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. 335 

SERMON XXXII. 

WHAT WE CAN, AND WHAT WE CANNOT, CARRY A WAT 
WHEN WE DIE. 

Psalm xlix. 11 (Prayer-Book version). 
He shall carry nothing away with him, when he dieth ; neither 
shall his pomp follow him 347 



SERMON XXXIII. 

WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 
Eev. iii. 4, 5. 

They shall walk with Me in white : for they are worthy. He 
that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment . 857 



SERMONS 



SERMON I. 

THE WORKS OF DARKNESS AND THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. 

The night is far spent, the day is at hand : let us therefore cast off the 
works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light Let us walk 
honestly, as in the day. — Rom. xiii. 12, 13. 

&boent Smtbat). 

ALL the services of this Advent season, upon which 
we are entering to-day, are directed to one single 
object. They all refer in one way or another to that 
great event which gives to this season its name, — to the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in his majesty to judge 
the quick and the dead. Thus the Gospel of this day 
was of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem as her 
king ; which has always been considered to have a 
symbolic prophetic significance, and to prefigure his 
triumphal entry into the kingdom of his glory. The 
Gospel of next Sunday will have to do with the signs 
and warnings which God has graciously given in his 
Holy Word, to the end that this great and terrible 
day, however it may overtake the world, may not over- 

(i) 



2 



THE WORKS OF DARKNESS 



take his people unawares. In the Gospel of the third 
Sunday in Advent we shall be reminded how God 
has ordained a living ministry, the ministers and 
stewards of his mysteries, whose office it is to prepare 
and make ready the Lord's way, by directing the hearts 
of his people into an earnest and patient waiting for 
Him. 

So, too, you will find it with all the other services 
of this holy time ; with the Epistles, for example. 
Thus take the words of my text, and those which go 
just before them — a portion, as you are aware, of 
to-day's Epistle. What a trumpet-tone does the 
Apostle here sound in our ears, — " it is high time to 
awake out of sleep," — startling us from the sleep of 
sin, telling us of a morning that is breaking, of a day 
that is at hand, of an armor with which we must be 
clothed, if we would be found upon that day in the 
ranks of God's army, and acknowledged as true sol- 
diers and servants of Him under whose banner we 
profess to serve. And assuredly the trumpet of the 
Apostle gives here no uncertain sound. It was by 
these very words that, fifteen hundred years ago, the 
noblest and chiefest uninspired teacher whom the 
Western Church has ever known, — I mean St. Agus- 
tine — it was in the act of reading these very words 
that he was at length effectually roused from the death 
of sin to the life of righteousness. It was by the 
Spirit of God working through these words that he 
was strengthened at last to burst those bands of sinful 
habit which had held him so long, and enabled to enter 
into the glorious liberty of the children of God. And, 



AND THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. 



3 



brethren, God s Word, if only we will suffer it to work 
in us. may be as potent now as ever it was of old, 
showing itself his power unto salvation by the same 
infallible proofs. Let us believe this as we address 
ourselves clause by clause to the words which we have 
before us. 

And first : " The night is far spent ; the day is at 
hand." What is here meant by " the night " ? It can 
only be the time of the world's darkness and ignorance, 
when men walked in darkness and knew not whither 
they were going ; when they did deeds of darkness, 
unreproved by one another ; and at length, being past 
feeling, unreproved even of their own consciences. 
But with Christ's first coming this thickest darkness 
was no more ; the day-spring broke. It was not, it is 
not yet, the full day. That will not be till his second 
glorious appearing. But the whole time between his 
first coming and his second may be looked at as the 
dawn, the daybreak ; light still struggling with dark- 
ness, the darkness only slowly receding, but yet ever 
receding ; retreating step by step, and pierced through 
and through as it retreats by the glittering shafts of 
the true King of day. " The night is far spent — 
even in his own time the Apostle could say this. The 
long weary night when heathen idolatry and Jewish 
superstition well-nigh divided the world, was coming 
to a close. Of the four worldly kingdoms, so fitly 
typified by the four ravening beasts which Daniel saw 
coming up out of the sea, three had already passed 
away ; and the fourth, the fiercest of all, " strong ex- 
ceedingly " as to the eye of sense it still appeared, 



4 



THE WORKS OF DARKNESS 



had received its deadly wound ; had received it at 
that moment when the Babe of Bethlehem was laid in 
his manger, though as yet it little knew that it was 
indeed wounded to the death. 

But if the night was already far spent when the 
Apostle wrote, how much nearer must it be now to its 
close. True, it is still thick darkness in many a heathem 
land. There is still a conflict of the darkness with 
the light, even where the true light shineth. Many a 
time it has seemed even there as though the darkness 
were about again to cover all — to cover all in our 
own hearts, to cover all in the church around us. Buf 
we know that for the church at least this can never be ; 
that the full and perfect day must be drawing nearer — 
the day when the darkness shall be forever past, and 
the shadows shall have forever fled away. " The day 
is at hand " — the day of the Lord Jesus Christ ; in 
other words, the day of perfect righteousness, of perfect 
holiness, of perfect truth, of perfect love (for He is all 
these — He is righteousness, He is holiness, He is truth, 
He is love) ; the day when He, the King, sitting on 
His throne, shall scatter all evil with His eyes — shall 
fulfil the prophetic words of the 101st Psalm : " Mine 
eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they 
may dwell with me. He that walketh in a perfect 
way, he shall serve me. He that worketh deceit shall 
not dwell within mine house ; he that telleth lies shall 
not tarry in my sight. I will early destroy all the 
wicked of the land, that I may cut off all wicked doers 
from the city of the Lord." 

But what does the Apostle urge from this nearness 



AND THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. 



5 



of the day? "Let us therefore put off the works of 
darkness, and put on the armor of light or, as he 
has it in another place, still moving in the same circle 
of images, " Let us, who are of the day, be sober, 
putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an 
helmet the hope of salvation 77 (1 Thess. v. 8). I quote 
the passage, not merely as an instructive parallel to 
this before us, but because of those precious words, 
" Let us, who are of the day, be sober. 77 You observe 
he declares in that passage, as in this, that the day has 
not yet broken ; the utmost we can say of the present 
time being, that it is the twilight dawn ; and yet he 
declares in the same breath that the faithful are " of 
the day, 77 that they belong, in other words, to the 
glorious time which is coming ; that however they may 
be in this present time, they are not of it ; they do not 
belong to it ; and upon this he grounds his argument 
that they should not fashion themselves according to it, 
that they should not do its works, nor conform them- 
selves to its ways, nor drink in its spirit. They do not 
belong to it — here is reason sufficient. They have 
something prophetic about their whole character ; they 
belong to a coming time, and not to the present. They 
are heirs of a world which is to come, and they must 
have their conversation already in it. 

Here, my dear brethren, is the answer with which 
you must answer those evil but ever-recurring sugges- 
tions of your own hearts — " Why should not I allow 
myself in those things, wherein I see the greater number 
around me allowing themselves ? Why should I live 
strictly, when others are living so loosely ? Mortify 



6 



THE WORKS OF DARKNESS 



my corrupt affections, when others are plainly allowing 
free scope to theirs ? Deny my appetites, when others 
are indulging theirs ?" — Simply for this reason, because 
you are not, as they ought not to be, a child of this 
present world. You are " of the day," and must do 
the works of the day : you are of the light, and must 
put on the armor of light. This is your vocation — to 
anticipate a coming time ; to live as belonging to it, 
though it has not yet appeared ; and your temptation 
lies in the fact that it has not appeared, that it seems to 
tarry so long : your temptation is to adapt and conform 
yourself to the darkness ; to let it assimilate you to 
itself • to become yourself selfish, because selfishness is 
the law of life for so many round you ; to become 
yourself dark, because there is such darkness round 
you ; forgetting that you are a child of the light, of 
the light which shall be, and not of the darkness which 
now is. 

As such St. Paul addresses you : " Let us cast off," 
he says, " the works of darkness, and let us put on the 
armor of light ; let us walk honestly, as in the day." 
Even though the day be not yet, let us walk honestly, 
as in it ; not making the darkness an excuse for such a 
walk as would misbecome us, as would prove unseemly, 
if the day had already broken ; for us it has broken. 
His exhortation has two sides, a negative side and a 
positive ; there is something to put off, " the works of 
darkness," and something to put on, " the armor of 
light f these being in fact not so much two duties, as 
one duty contemplated now from one point of view, 
and now from another. For indeed the darkness in 



AND THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. 



7 



us only loses ground in exact proportion as the light 
gains ground ; we put off the old man only in that 
measure that we put on the new ; we die to sin only in 
the degree that we live to righteousness. Satan must 
be cast out of a heart by a mightier coming to dwell 
and to make his habitation there; he never goes out. 
There is no such thing as his going out of himself ; or 
if he does go out, not being cast out by the finger of 
God, it is only to return, to find his old habitation 
empty, swept, and garnished, ready for him, and it may 
be seven worse spirits than himself, to take a new 
possession there. Which things being so, if we would 
fain cast off those works of darkness, there is only one 
way of doing it, through a putting on of the armor 
of light. 

What those " works of darkness " are is manifest ; 
some of the grosser forms of them St. Paul has enu- 
merated in the verse which follows ; and they go by 
many ugly names in Scripture. They are " the works 
of the flesh," "dead works," "the hidden things of 
dishonesty," " the unfruitful works of shame." What- 
ever is unable to endure the light, whatever shrinks 
from it rebuked, whatever cannot bear to think of 
itself as brought out into the open day — that is a work 
of darkness. Thus the impure thought and the impure 
deed, every thing in the relation of the sexes which is 
not according to the law of holiness, that is a work 
of darkness. Again, the lie is a work of darkness, the 
flatterer's lie and the slanderer's lie, the buyer's lie and 
the seller's lie, the lie acted in the life, or looked 
through the face, or spoken by the lips — they are all 



8 



THE WORKS OP DARKNESS 



works of darkness. And every dishonest dealing 
between man and man, unfaithfulness in much or in 
little, unrighteous stewardship of other men's goods, 
the false balance and the deceitful weights, borrowing 
without the intention or without the fair prospect of 
repaying, taking advantage of an oversight or forget- 
fulness in another, making untruthful returns of the 
amount of our income, and so laying our proper 
burden on the shoulders of others — these are all works 
of darkness. So too the malignant thought against a 
brother, disparagement of his merits, envy at his suc- 
cesses, secret desires that his blessings might be fewer, 
pleasure at his calamity, when he does indeed come 
into misfortune like other folk — all these, with a 
multitude more that might be named, are works of 
darkness, which may be hidden now, but which shall be 
open and manifest in that day which is at hand. 

And that you may be the more earnest in casting 
off these works, think, oh, think what a day is coming ! 
When the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his 
glory, what a flood of light, of light from Him, will 
surround every one of us ; and not surround us only as 
from without, but shall penetrate us through and 
through, piercing and transpiercing, till there be not 
one dark cranny in our hearts, one unilluminated spot 
in our lives. In his light our light shall be seen, or 
our darkness. Whatever there may hitherto have been 
of hidden in any man, it shall be hidden no more ; that 
day shall declare it. All things shall be naked and 
opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we shall then 
have to do. Ah, brethren, when we consider what are 



AND THE ARMOR OP LIGHT. 9 

the lives of too many, what our own lives perhaps 
have been, what our own hearts certainly are, here is 
an expectation which may well make us tremble. No 
wonder that we read of some that on that day shall 
call on the hills to cover them and the rocks to fall on 
them, choosing these terrible things which at other 
times they would most have shunned, rather than the 
wrath of the Lamb, rather than the shame and ever- 
lasting contempt that shall then be their portion. No 
wonder the Psalmist should exclaim, " Blessed is the 
man whose unrighteousness is forgiven, whose sin is 
covered." Would we inherit this blessedness, would 
we avoid that shame — there is only one way to do 
this ; to cast off those works of darkness ; which, if we 
cleave to them, if we refuse to let them go, will be to 
us then a heritage of rebuke and dishonor, a clinging 
garment of shame and misery and despair. 

And if any ask, How shall we cast them off? how 
cast off these evil habits, sinful practices, unholy 
thoughts and desires, which, allowed and entertained 
so long, have become the very robe and garment of 
our souls, yea, part and parcel of our very selves? 
there is only one way for any one of us. Through a 
putting on of the armor of light ; in other words, a 
putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ. Put off the old 
man, which you can only do by putting on the new. 
And you can put on this new. Christ was given you, 
when you were baptized into Him. He was made unto 
you wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and 
redemption. Claim Him as all these. He is a Person, 
and therefore can impart not a thing only, but a life — 



10 THE WORKS OF DARKNESS 

• 

a divine Person, and therefore can impart a divine 
life. It needs but the act of your faith to obtain all 
this from Him. This faith indeed is itself the gift of 
God ; but if there is any true longing in you after 
Christ, any true repentance for having left Him and 
his righteousness unclaimed so long, He will give you 
that faith whereby you may appropriate all the benefits 
of his life and death, his resurrection and his glory. 
Put Him on then, for you may do so ; clothe yourself 
with Him, and He shall be to you armor of light ; a 
light and a defence, a sun and a shield. And then, 
many darts of the Wicked may fly around you and 
about you ? but they shall not hurt you ; they shall fall 
off or glance aside from those radiant arms : and when 
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, you shall appear 
with Him in glory. It must be so. If He has made 
you here to love holiness, goodness, mercy, truth, his 
kingdom, the kingdom which He shall set up, shall be 
a kingdom of all these. How then should you not 
have your place in it? and the more earnestly you 
have loved and followed these, the higher place and 
the nearer to Him. 

Put on then this armor, this whole armor of God ; 
put it on piece by piece, the helmet of hope, the 
breastplate of faith and love, taking in. # your hand the 
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God ; be 
complete in Him. The kingdom of darkness can only 
harm those who by natural affinity belong to it — the 
unloving, the untruthful, the unmerciful, the unholy. 
These are its victims ; against these the powers of 
darkness prevail, and on these the chains of darkness 



AND THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. 



11 



are laid. . But walk in love, walk in holiness, walk in 
sincerity and truth, walk (which is the same thing) in 
the light of the Lord, and none of these things shall by 
any means hurt you. The same which is your glory 
shall be also your defence • that which is your sun shall 
be also your shield. And when He comes at length, 
who is the light as He is the life of men, when there is 
no longer a foe to be resisted, a darkness to be scat- 
tered, a weapon to be turned aside, when therefore 
armor is needed no more, that armor of light will 
become a vesture of light, the garment of peace instead 
of the panoply of war, a shining garment of immor- 
tality, a wedding garment, admitting you without 
rebuke to the marriage supper of the Lamb. 



SERMON II. 



TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S 
ACCESSION. 

He hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness ; and wisdom 
and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times. — Isaiah xxxiii. 
5,6. 

rpHERE are many aspects under which we might 
JL contemplate that great event in the annals of this 
church and nation, namely, the accession of Queen 
Elizabeth to the throne of this realm, and nearly all 
of them aspects of gratulation. There is hardly one 
of these which would not yield matter of devout thanks- 
giving to Him who orders the destinies of nations no 
less certainly than those of individuals ; who gives to 
them kings, and who takes them away, now in His 
anger, and now in His very faithfulness and love. 

Thus, we might fitly praise Him that by this auspi- 
cious event, and for the elects' sake, those days were 
shortened, — those days such as England, since she was 
a nation, had never seen before, such as, we humbly 
trust, she will never see again ; — I allude, of course, to 
the last two years of the reign of Queen Mary, the 
period of the Marian persecution. For, glorious as 
those days had proved to the English church, making 

(12) 



queen Elizabeth's accession. 13 

her what else she might have failed in being, a church 
of martyrs, giving to her her Saviour's own baptism 
of blood ; kindling, as they did, a light in this land 
which, by God's mercy, shall never again be put out ; 
proving, as triumphantly they did, that those in high 
place and those in low could alike play the man, that 
tender women and little children out of weakness 
could be made strong, and could glorify God in the 
fires ; — still, for all this, we must needs thank God 
that He now quenched the violence of these fires, 
bade the fury of that storm to cease, commanded His 
slain witnesses to stand upon their feet, and, as it 
were, to ascend into heaven, even in the sight of their 
enemies ; and, to quote, with a little alteration, the 
words of the translators of our Bible, " at the rising 
of that bright occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth, of 
happy memory, scattered those thick and palpable 
clouds of darkness which had so long overshadowed 
the land." 

This, I say, would be a most just matter of praise 
and thanksgiving upon this anniversary. Or, not so 
much looking at the evil which was this day made to 
cease as at the good which with this day began, we 
might fitly give God thanks for the inauguration upon 
it of a reign, one of the most illustrious in our annals, 
during which she whom He had already so mercifully 
preserved through the many perils of her youth, 
wielded with a wise and strong hand the sceptre of 
this realm, did not suffer any faults and foibles of her 
private character to intrude into the sphere of her 
royal duties, or seriously to affect her fulfilment of 



14 



TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION OP 



them. We might justly praise God for the final set- 
tlement and consolidation in her reign of the English 
church on such stable foundations that, with the brief 
interruption of the Great Rebellion, it has continued 
to the present day, shaping and moulding for good 
the whole character of this English people. Nor less 
might we praise Him for England assuming her right- 
ful place in the very forefront of the great religious 
movement of the sixteenth century — assisting, strength- 
ening, and yet at the same time controlling it, where 
there was danger that this movement was travelling 
too fast and in a wrong direction, where it was rather 
seeking to get as far as possible from Rome than as 
near as possible to the truth ; or counting that this 
and that were absolutely identical with one another. 

Nor was it only that these glorious things came to 
pass in her reign ; but we must needs recognize in 
Queen Elizabeth a main instrument in the hands of 
God, by which they were brought about. I know it 
is the fashion with some to assert that the personal 
character of an English sovereign exerts very little 
influence on the course of events, on the tone, temper, 
and spirit of the English people. All experience of 
the past refutes this assertion. Even at this day, when 
other coordinate powers of the state have so much 
more influence and importance than once they had, 
this is not the case. We are not here to speak flatter- 
ing words, or to accept the person of any ; but so far 
from words of adulation, it is only barest truth, when 
we affirm that the personal character of our present 
gracious sovereign is felt through almost every house- 



queen Elizabeth's accession. 



15 



hold of the land. Who will dare measure the value 
of the witness which she has given, that in the bosom 
of the family, in the charmed circle of home, in the 
fulfilment of the duties arising there, are found our 
best and truest and purest blessings ; blessings there- 
fore within the reach of peasant and prince alike ? or 
who limit the extent to which the whole family life of 
our land has been strengthened, elevated, and purified 
by such a pattern set continually before it ? And not 
otherwise of old in the hour of extreme danger, in 
the great agony of England's unequal struggle with 
the might and power of Spain, not otherwise did the 
heroic spirit of Elizabeth — the undaunted bearing with- 
out, true index of the undaunted soul within, thrill 
like an electric shock through the whole national 
mind and heart of England, and make itself felt in 
every pulse of the national life ; and to her, under 
God, we are in large part indebted for the triumphant 
issue with which that terrible conflict was crowned. 

We might then very fitly, or at least with no inap- 
propriateness, dwell on any or all of these benefits 
which came to this church and nation upon this day 
three hundred years ago through the accession of 
Queen Elizabeth to the English throne. But speaking 
within these walls, and to this congregation above all, 
to the assembled members of this foundation, remem- 
bering too that we are come together to commemorate 
not her reign in the general, nor the benefits in the 
general which that reign brought with it, but to com- 
memorate according to ancient custom, and with a 
celebration somewhat more emphatic than that annual 



16 TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION OF 

one which used to find place in these walls, Queen 
Elizabeth as the foundress of this Collegiate Church 
of St. Peter's, I cannot but feel that there is a subject 
nearer home, and on which it more behoves me to 
dwell ; and that is, the close connection, as exempli- 
fied in the foundation of this College, between the 
cause of the Reformation and that of sound learning. 
I have said, as exemplified in the foundation of this 
College, because this was in fact but one out of num- 
berless examples of the same thing. 

The grammar-schools of England, which, despite 
the abuses which have crept into so many, and caused 
them to fall short of the intentions of their founders, 
these which have rendered, and will render, such in- 
calculable blessings to our land, date back, if I do not 
err, almost exclusively to the Reformation, and to the 
times which immediately followed ; very many of 
them therefore, and certainly the most important, to 
the reigns of Edward the Sixth and Elizabeth. When 
we contemplate how large a boon they, have conferred 
on our land, it is indeed sad to think how much more 
might have been in this way effected by royal hands, 
if greedy and time-serving courtiers had not too often 
intercepted and turned to profane uses that which, 
having been once consecrated and dedicated to the 
service of God, should have remained, under whatever 
altered forms, dedicated and consecrated to this ser- 
vice for ever. Still let us be thankful for what has 
been in this way wrought — for the new and healthier 
channels in which the liberality of so many now ran, 
as compared with those in which during prior ages it 



QUEEN ELIZABETH'S ACCESSION. 



17 



had been wont to run — for the fortresses of light and 
knowledge, with provision that they should be duly 
garrisoned for all succeeding ages against the incur- 
sions of ignorance and barbarism and error, which 
were at so many points erected through the land. It 
was indeed, as we must needs acknowledge, a glorious 
testimony of the confidence which the Reformation 
had in itself, and in the eternal foundations of truth 
on which it rested, that it everywhere sought to ally 
itself with learning and knowledge as the best human 
allies which it could have ; that it thus everywhere 
came to the light, that its works might he made mani- 
fest that they were wrought in God. 

It had been so from the beginning. The Revival 
of Learning could never of itself have produced a 
Reformation in the church. That needed hearts and 
lips touched with fire from heaven — men of whom the 
Word of God had mightily taken hold, who for that 
Word's sake were ready to go forward to dungeons 
and to deaths. The Revival of Learning by itself 
could have produced but an Erasmus at the best ; and, 
large as is our debt to him, if only Erasmus and such 
as he had fought against the errors and corruptions of 
the church, those errors and corruptions might have 
continued to this day. And yet for all this we should 
willingly acknowledge that this Revival, though not 
the motive power, was still a necessary condition, of 
the Reformation in the church ; which could scarcely, 
indeed could not at all, have been carried successfully 
through without it. For wherein lay the true strength 
of the Reformation? First, in the appeal to the Scrip- 



18 



TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION OF 



tures, to the word and to the testimony ; and then in 
that to primitive, as contrasted with a more recent, 
antiquity ; to the stream near its source, and not to 
the swollen and turbid currents lower down. But 
without a close and accurate acquaintance with the 
languages in which the Scriptures were written, how 
could this appeal to them, to their historical and 
grammatical sense, lead to any satisfying results ? 
Hence the absolute necessity of schools in which 
these languages should be taught — the common cause, 
so to speak, which the Reformation made with human 
learning, above all with the knowledge of the Greek 
and Hebrew tongues — the support which they mutually 
yielded to one another, so that Luther could say with 
hardly an exaggeration, The best grammarian will be 
the best theologian. Then too again, as regarded the 
appeal to primitive antiquity, and the showing that 
this antiquity was on our side and not on that of 
Rome, in what way could this be effectually done, 
how could forged decretals and the like, on which 
Rome had relied so much, by aid of which had pushed 
her pretensions so far, be displayed as the forgeries 
which they were, how could the false be distinguished 
from the true, without that finer tact and subtler skill 
which only a long and accurate training in ancient 
learning could supply ? 

Then, too, while we of the English church claimed 
for Scripture that it should receive the law of its 
interpretation only from itself, with none above it 
save that Lord from whom it came, we were very far 
from looking at the Bible as though, like the famous 



queen Elizabeth's accession. 



19 



image of Diana * or the sacred shields of the old 
Roman religion, it had dropped direct from heaven ; 
or was to be dealt with as if our own were the first 
human hands into which it had come. We knew, on 
the contrary, that for long ages it had been in the 
keeping of men ; that many of the wisest and the 
best had spent themselves and their lives in the search- 
ing out of its meaning ; that it would be a huge pride 
and presumption on our part, such as would be most 
likely to entangle us in error, to slight, and slighting 
to forego, those helps for its understanding with which 
they had so richly supplied us. Here was another 
reason why the Reformed Church required to be famil- 
iar with the languages which had as it were the key 
of knowledge to the treasures of instruction which 
the writings of these men contained. 

Therefore was it, and for reasons such as these, that 
the authors under G od of our Reformation, — the Cran- 
mers, and the Ridleys, and the Whitgifts, with the 
Kings that were its nursing fathers, and the Queens 
that were its nursing mothers, — felt by a true instinct, 
or rather saw with a clear insight, the all-importance 
of the maintenance of schools and universities of 
sound learning ; and that, if pure religion was to 
flourish in the land, these must flourish too ; — what- 
ever else might love the darkness, it could prosper 
only in the light, for God from whom it came was 
light ; therefore they saw the need of uniting by the 
closest possible bands these schools of human learning 



* Acts xix. 35. 



20 



TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION OP 



with the schools of divine, since the two must prosper 
together and decay together. 

Let us then, my Christian brethren, all who are 
here present, as duteous children of the English 
church, thank and praise God that He put it into 
the heart of his servant Queen Elizabeth to found 
this Collegiate Church of St. Peter, for the preach- 
ing and teaching of the pure reformed faith of Christ 
in the land, for the maintenance of that sound learn- 
ing, which a church like ours, militant here upon 
earth against so many forms of error, can never afford 
to be without. And may we who are bound by still 
closer ties to this grand foundation, to this great 
historic church of our land, who are here present, 
not as worshippers only, but have come together to 
this solemnity as sharers of the high dignity, but also 
as sharers of the deep responsibilities, which accrue 
to every member of our body, keep evermore in mind 
to what a serious extent the credit, the honor, the 
usefulness of Westminster is in our keeping, yea, is 
in the keeping of each one of us in particular — 
and how far we may each one of us hinder a bless- 
ing upon it or help one forward ; make it honor- 
able, or make it contemptible in the eyes of men. 
One of Westminster's worthiest sons, who would 
have spoken nothing but what he felt to be the truth 
about it, I mean Bishop Andrews, describing it two 
centuries and a half ago, could apply to it such titles 
as these — " Musarum domicilium, virtutis officinam, no- 
bile doctrinae et pietatis acn7)Tr\piov % " Will it not need 
the most earnest zeal, and labor, and diligence, and 



queex Elizabeth's accession. 



21 



prayer of every one of us, if it is to be upheld and 
maintained at the height and level of this praise ? 
God grant that it may not through any fault of ours 
fall beneath it. 

What indeed may be in store for Westminster, for 
England, for Christendom, for the world, it is not per- 
mitted us to know. But it is permitted us to pray, 
and if in the words of a heathen, yet with a Christian 
sense, and looking up to Him who alone can make 
stable, " Stet fortuna domus :" and when another three 
hundred years are past, .may England be still in the 
foremost rank among the nations, still holding forth 
the word of life, the torch of truth, which no com- 
petitor outstripping her in the race shall have taken 
from her ; may the children's children of Queen Vic- 
toria still sit on their ancestral throne ; and in this 
beautiful house a pure offering of prayer and praise 
be made continually to God. 



SERMON III. 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 



And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which 
was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith 
in Christ. And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and 
judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for 
this time ; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. 



J_ for my sake, for a testimony against them and 
the Gentiles " — such was the announcement of Christ 
which He made to the Twelve, as He looked on into 
the future fortunes of his church, as with prophetic 
eye He beheld it painfully yet gloriously winning its 
way, evermore obtaining a wider hearing, awakening 
a deeper attention, till at length its sound should go 
out into all lands, and his word which it bore into the 
ends of the world. 

There was one who was not present to hear these 
words when they were first uttered ; but in none were 
they more signally fulfilled than in that great thir- 
teenth apostle, who after the resurrection was aggre- 
gated to the other twelve, and labored more abun- 
dantly than them all. Sergius Paulus, and Felix, and 
Festus, Agrippa and Berenice, yea, in all likelihood 



— Acts xxiv. 24, 25. 




before governors and kings 



(22) 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 



23 



the emperor Nero himself, — St. Paul stood before all 
these, and in their presence declared that there was a 
mightier Potentate than them all, a King of kings 
and Lord of lords, before whose judgment-seat they 
who now rode on the high places of the earth, they 
no less than the least and meanest of mankind, must 
one day appear. Strange and marvellous the leadings 
of God's providence, which thus brought together, 
which thus set face to face, the foremost princes of 
this world, the sceptred monarchs of the earth, and 
him whom, without wrong and disparagement of 
others, we may call the first and chiefest among the 
princes of the new kingdom, the ambassadors of the 
heavenly King. And few of these meetings were 
stranger than that whereof in my text we have rec- 
ord. Once indeed it is probable that St. Paul 
stood before a worse man than this Felix ; but setting- 
aside and excepting that his interview with Nero, the 
antichrist of the Roman world, it is little likely that 
at any moment he stood face to face with a man mean- 
er, baser, more unscrupulous, more lustful, more rapa- 
cious, than this Felix, in whose power it lay, so far as 
it lay in any man's power, to open his prison doors, 
or to shut them ; to deliver him to the will of his 
enemies, or to throw over him the shield and shelter 
of the Roman law. 

It so happens that we know not a little about this 
Felix, and all that we know bears me out that I do 
not paint him in colors darker than he deserved. The 
great Roman historian of the time tells us that, relying 
on the protection of a powerful kinsman at the 



24 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 



imperial court, he counted that he might commit in his 
province every atrocity with impunity ; and elsewhere, 
not missing the fact that he was sprung from a servile 
stock, the same pitiless narrator of the crimes of his 
age, describes to us this Felix as " exercising in each 
form of cruelty and lust the jurisdiction of a monarch 
in the spirit of a slave. 7 ' And now he sits, this evil 
man, upon the seat of judgment. Beside him sits 
Drusilla, " his wife," the sacred historian calls her ; for 
he does not think it needful to interrupt the history 
by laying bare the shame and scandal of their connex- 
ion ; nor to bring out that, however wife in name, yet 
wife in deed she was not ; for Felix had enticed her, 
the first of three queens whom he successively married, 
from her own husband, one of those petty princes 
whom the Romans endured within their empire ; and 
in his case and hers the names of husband and wife 
did but palliate and conceal the realities of adulterer 
and adulteress. 

I have thought it desirable to enter thus into detail 
(I might have entered into much larger detail) of what 
we know from other sources concerning this Felix : 
for it throws a flood of light on the history before us. 
We now may see why it was that when Felix " sent for 
Paul, and heard him concerning the faith of Christ,' 7 
Paul reasoned before him " of righteousness, temper- 
ance,' 7 or continence, as perhaps we might better ren- 
der it, " and judgment to come. 77 It was the glory of 
the Apostle, his boast, if I may so say, that he became 
all things to all men ; we are here helped to understand 
what he meant by this boast. There are flatterers, 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 25 

deceitful handlers of the Word of God, who become 
all things to all men, in the hope that they may please 
all. There are faithful dealers, who become all things 
to all men that if possible they may win some. We 
have here one of these faithful dealers. Had he seen 
before him one of the weary and heavy-la(Jen, one of 
the weary with the burden of their sins, the heavy-laden 
with the sense of their guilt, a Philippian jailer, 
crying out of the depth of a contrite and penitent 
heart, " What must I do to be saved ?" the Apostle 
would have changed his voice, would have brought 
other things out of his treasure-house. " Believe on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" — 
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin 
of the world" — such would have been his more welcome 
message to such a soul ; so had he reasoned of the faith 
in Christ to him. But he saw none such here ; on the 
contrary, a proud, stout-hearted sinner, sitting in 
the seat of judgment, but executing unrighteous judg- 
ment there, his paramour and partner of his guilt sit- 
ting shamelessly beside him ; and to this man " he rea- 
soned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to 
come." To the spoiler of his province, to the man 
whose hands were full of bribes and full of blood, he 
spake of righteousness, of the righteousness of God, 
which he, Felix, was appointed to execute upon earth 
— to the adulterer, the unchaste, the unclean, he spake 
of temperance, of that rule and rein which every man 
should set over his appetites and desires — to the sin- 
ner heaping up wrath against the day of wrath, he 
spake of a judgment to come, of a day when God 
2 



26 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 



should judge the world by the Man whom He had 
ordained. 

This was indeed a right dividing of the word of 
truth ; this was a using of the law lawfully, even as it 
was made " for the lawless and disobedient, for unholy 
and profane," for such as this Felix was. For the law, 
I mean the law as distinct from, and, so to speak, in 
antithesis to, the Gospel, this law, serving for many 
ends, serves in the dispensation of grace above all for 
this end, that it is the hammer of God, with which He 
will break in pieces, if He may, the hard heart of man j 
that, this done and a true contrition brought about, 
the grace of God may reunite the shattered fragments 
again, and make a whole heart out of a broken heart, 
a heart which God's grace has made whole out of a 
heart which God's law has broken. It is only when 
the law of God has pronounced the sentence of death 
upon the condemned sinner, and he owns this sentence 
to be just, that the grace of God in Christ can 
pronounce the sentence of life on the forgiven sinner, 
and he can enter into the joy and liberty of the 
children of God. 

But, alas ! in Felix's case this law of God did but 
perform half its work, and was then by him frustrated 
and defeated before it could perform the other and 
more blessed part that remained : " as Paul reasoned 
of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, 
Felix trembled." It did but perform half its work, 
and yet that half how wonderful ! As Paul reasoned, 
Felix trembled. They still occupied to the eye of 
sense the same places as before, Paul at the bar, Felix 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 



27 



on the judgment-seat, and yet in deed the places of the 
two are shifted, the tables turned, the conditions 
reversed. The judge is judged, the prisoner pronounces 
the doom. Oh wonderful power of conviction that 
there is in the truth! how does it commend itself, 
whether he will or no, to the conscience of every man! 
Paul knew that there was in every man, even in that 
guilty, miserable man who sat quailing before him, 
something that would respond to the manifestations of 
the truth from his lips : he knew that the foundations of 
man's being were laid in the truth, whatever of lies 
and falsehood may have overgrown those foundations 
since ; that wicked men, in his own language elsewhere, 
might hold the truth in unrighteousness, but that they 
held it still. He knew that lie had a message for Felix, 
as he had a message for every man — even God's 
message ; and presently there was that in the bearing 
of the man whom he addressed which abundantly 
justified this confidence of his. " Felix trembled." He 
may have shared, he probably did share, in the wide- 
spread scepticism or unbelief of the educated heathen 
of the age. He had overlived all faith in the things 
which his own religion taught him of the rewards laid 
up for the good, the punishments reserved for the 
wicked. Tartarus and Elysium, Minos and Rhada- 
manthus with their seats of judgment, the wheel of 
Ixion, the stone of Sisyphus, the whips of the Furies, 
all these no doubt were poets' fictions, old wives' tales, 
dotards' dreams for him. Dismissing these, he may 
have long since dismissed with them the truth which 
was behind them all, that kernel of truth whereof 



28 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 



these were but the husk and outer covering. But now 
that truth, so old and yet so new, revived in him again 
— -just as by some chemical applications the writing on 
parchment, long since apparently effaced by age, may 
start into life again — while Paul declared to him that 
men were made for righteousness and not for un- 
righteousness, for temperance and not for lusts, and 
how they should all appear one day before a righteous 
Judge of the world, to give account to Him of the 
deeds done in the body. Felix, I say, could not deny 
this. Besides the voice of the Apostle, there was 
another voice in his own heart, deep calling unto deep, 
which told him that this was true, which compelled 
him to set his own seal to the Apostle's words ; and 
" Felix trembled." 

We read of others who have trembled. We read 
of one that sprang in and came trembling and fell be- 
fore the feet of Paul ;* but he a true candidate for the 
kingdom of heaven, whose earnest cry, whose " What 
must I do to be saved ?" was the augury of far other 
and far better things than the dilatory plea in which 
the trembling of this man ended : " Go thy way for 
this time ; when I have a convenient season, I will call 
for thee." And why " Go thy way for this time" ? 
why did that fear never ripen into love ? How was it 
that a possible conversion was thus stifled and strangled 
in the birth ? Alas ! the reason is plain ; he has him- 
self declared it. All which St. Paul declared to him 
might be, nay his conscience told him it was, true ; but 



• Acts xvi 29. 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 



29 



that season was not a convenient one. It was not 
convenient then to cleanse his hands from bribes and 
his heart from lusts ; to put away the adulteress 
who sat by his side. There was no love of Christ con- 
straining, and making the hard easy, and the painful 
pleasant, and the rough smooth, and the mountain a 
plain. And so he trembled — and did nothing more. 
Unhappy Felix ! strange irony of fate which caused 
him to bear this name ! miserable contradiction be- 
tween the man and his name ! The name Happy, the 
man most unhappy ! For who so unhappy as he who 
just reaches that point of piety which the devils reach, 
for they too "believe and tremble," and who there 
stops ? who so unhappy as he, the slave of lusts which 
he knows will be his ruin, but which he cannot, or at 
least will not, leave ? with an ear so far opened that 
he can hear the thunders of the day of doom already 
muttering in the distance, while yet his heart is closed 
to the still small voices of God, which would tell him, 
would he listen to them, that He who shall be his 
Judge on that day would fain be his Saviour and his 
Deliverer now ? 

Meanwhile he pacifies his conscience with the vague 
designation of some future day when he will again 
hear this preacher of righteousness. " When I have a 
convenient season I will call for thee." Convenient, 
we are tempted to ask, for what ? for his sins ? for 
his lusts? If counsel is asked of them, when will the 
convenient time for them have arrived? when will 
they consent to be dispossessed? Oh, no, brethren; 
that was the " convenient season that was his day 



30 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 



of visitation, if only he had known it. We cannot 
affirm of Felix that at any moment he was near to the 
kingdom of heaven ; and yet we must say that at this 
moment the kingdom of heaven had come nearer to him 
than it ever had come before, than it ever should come 
again. Fear had made a breach, and love might have 
entered in. 

And thou, whosoever thou art, whom at any time 
God's Word has found out in depths of thy heart 
where it had not penetrated before, who tremblest for 
a moment at God's judgments ! at that day when thou 
shalt stand before his throne, all the secrets of thy life 
disclosed, all thy hidden things uncovered, beware lest 
all this thy trembling be as barren and unfruitful and 
unblest for thee as the like was for Felix. Be true to 
thine own soul. Cherish that new-born infant desire 
after God which is behind this trembling ; carry it to 
Christ, that He may take it in his arms and bless it, 
and send it and thee strengthened away. Say to no 
good thought, no holy desire, " Go thy way." It is 
God's messenger. Thou wouldst never have had it at 
all if He had not sent it. It is God's messenger to 
thee for good. As such entertain it. Flatter not thy- 
self that, however thou mayest dismiss it now, at a 
more convenient time thou wilt call for it again. 
Thou wilt not call for it ; or if thou callest it will not 
come ; or if it come, it will not come in power and 
blessing as it came at the first. See this all exempli- 
fied in the case of Felix. He did indeed send for Paul 
again, but we do not read that he trembled again. He 
communed with him often. But why? Was it to 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 



31 



deepen these impressions ? was it that he might obtain 
more perfect knowledge of the way of Christ ? was it 
that he might better learn how to flee from that wrath 
of God at which he shuddered ? The sacred historian 
shall tell us why he sent for Paul and communed with 
him often. " He hoped that money should have been 
given him of Paul, that he might loose him." 

All that was meanest, all that was basest, all that 
was most unrighteous in the man had revived again, 
and in all its old strength and malignity. There is no 
worse sign of a man than when he forms a miserably 
low estimate of the moral condition of every other 
man, when, being himself base, he counts every other 
man base too. The proverb says well that it is "ill- 
doers who are ill-deemers." And Felix thought wick- 
edly that Paul, this preacher of righteousness, was 
even such an one as himself. He knew that the Apos- 
tle at this time was the bearer of alms to his nation, — 
had at his disposition no inconsiderable sums of money, 
the gift of the richer churches of Greece and Macedo- 
nia to the poor saints at Jerusalem ; and he dared to 
hope that the man of God, after all his fine words 
about righteousness and the like, would purchase his 
liberty by a bribe, and that with money of which he 
was only the dispenser, and which had been entrusted 
to him for quite other ends. 

I say, this circumstance, this exceeding baseness of 
Felix, thus willing to prostitute his office, and to do 
for money what he would not do for righteousness' 
sake, this belief on his part of a like baseness in St. 
Paul, is infinitely significant, — well deserves that we 



32 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 



should lay it, every one of us, to heart ; for it teaches 
us the downward progress of men who are not true to 
their convictions. It was not much, that trembling of 
Felix, and yet it might have led to much. He was but 
in an outer court, the outermost court of all, of the 
heavenly temple ; and yet, if he had pressed on he 
would have found himself in the innermost sanctuary 
at last, passing out of the darkness of this world into 
the clear light of God — from the pollutions of a sen- 
sual life into the joyful sanctities of a risen and ascend- 
ed life in Christ. But he had not courage to advance, 
so he lost even the little he had gained. He went 
back again j the defilements of the world — he was en- 
tangled in them more deeply than ever ; a thicker 
darkness closed round him than before, and no ray of 
light that we know of pierced it again ; and Felix 
stands before us a warning that a man may be con- 
vinced of his sin, and yet not converted to God • that 
fear may have torment, but only love a blessing ; a 
lesson, too, that there is but one convenient time for 
conversion, and that is the present ; that each neg- 
lected opportunity, each stifled conviction, leaves the 
sinner in a worse, a more hopeless condition than it 
found him. 

Beware, then, I would beseech you, when the sharp 
arrows of conviction pierce you, when they pierce, at 
least for a moment, through your armor of proof, your 
worldliness, your indifference, your pride, — beware of 
plucking out these arrows, and then rejoicing that you 
are heart-whole again. Better to be shot through and 
through with those shafts, drawn as they are from the 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 38 

armory of heaven ; better that they should drink up 
your spirit, better that you should go mourning all the 
day, than that you should be heart-whole, perfect and 
entire, as the sinner is from whom those arrows have 
glanced aside, or who has plucked them from his breast 
again. 

And once more, beware by the example of Felix — 
he stands a beacon to warn you, — beware of the re- 
pentance of to-morrow. Break off your sins by right- 
eousness at once. An old Father has said that every 
lost sinner who finds himself in the pit at the last, has 
had his own scala inferni, his own especial ladder of 
hell, by which more than by any other he went down 
into that gulf of woe. Whatever this ladder of hell 
may be for thee — I cannot tell what it is, but thou 
knowest — go not down it another step ; leave off, re- 
nounce at once that unlawful gain, that unholy con- 
nexion, that secret impurity, that purpose of revenge, 
that neglect of prayer, that absorbing pursuit of 
wealth or of pleasure, or whatever else it may be, 
which more than every thing besides threatens to be 
thy ruin. 

This may seem to thee hard, as no doubt it did to 
Felix. But how many things, which look most hard 
at a distance, are easy when they are tried. Fear 
indeed will not enable you to do them, but love will ; 
that love which may be learned in the near contempla- 
tion of the Crucified. Dare not to draw back, when 
He would draw you out of yourself and nearer to 
Him. It was for this that He was lifted up upon his 
cross, for this exalted, that He might draw all men 



34 



CONVICTION AND CONVERSION. 



unto Him. Let Him draw you with cords of love 
(these are the only cords which are never broken), 
with cords which are at once the cords of a man, and 
the cords of the everlasting Son of the Father. Ke- 
ject no impulse, no motion toward God ; rejecting 
such, you may be rejecting angels unawares — angels 
who would have blest you, but who, being excluded, 
turn away with sad countenances, and the sadder as 
perhaps knowing that they are turning from you, as 
they turned from Felix, never to return any more. 



SERMON IV. 



THE INCEEDULITY OF THOMAS. 

Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: 
blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have "believed. — St. 
John xx 29. 

HOW many festival days, in which we commemorate 
the saints of God, cluster round Ms day who is 
the King of Saints ; and it is only fit that they should, 
that Christmas-day should have these handmaids, 
should be thus gloriously attended ; since He was on 
that day born, who alone enables any other to be new 
born, from whom alone these saints whom we commem- 
orate derived the beauty which adorned them, the 
strength wherewith they overcame the world. One 
of these days, which, as satellites of lesser brightness, 
wait upon the central brightness of Christmas-day, 
we have reached this morning — the festival of St. 
Thomas ; and this fitly precedes the festival of the In- 
carnation of the Son of God ; for it is the festival of 
the convinced doubter — of him who searched and 
sought, for a while too curiously, into the mysteries 
presented to him ; but whose doubts and difficulties 
the Lord, even while He rebuked them, graciously met, 
and for ever overcame. The church, celebrating this 
one of her saints at the present moment, when she 

(35) 



36 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



stands at the threshold of the sublimest mystery of all, 
namely, the incarnation of the Son of God, would 
teach us that she shrinks from no examination of her 
claims — that she courts the most searching 'scrutiny in 
respect of those great facts on which her faith reposes, 
and for which she demands the faith of her children — 
that, only let a doubter be an honest one, one who is 
desiring to believe, and not one who is seeking excuses 
for unbelief , and she will stoop even to his somewhat 
unreasonable requirements, if by so doing she may 
bring him to see the glory of the Only-begotten of the 
Father, which hitherto has been hid from his eyes. 

We read then of St. Thomas, that, one of the twelve 
as he was, he was not with the other ten at the first 
appearance to them of their risen Lord. In that em- 
phatic " one of the twelve" with which the Evangelist 
notes his absence, we may recognize, I am persuaded, 
a silent rebuke. " One of the twelve,' 7 one chosen to 
be a witness of Christ and his resurrection, he had 
yet separated himself from them, and from their hopes, 
and, as it proved, for a while from their blessing. 
There are those who account this absence of his to 
have been accidental, that he was kept from the com- 
pany of his fellow-apostles by some cause which had 
no moral significance in it. But we must not so 
regard it ; we should thus lose the, right point of view 
from which to judge of the whole narrative on which 
we are entering. Putting the three passages together 
in which St. Thomas is mentioned, — one in the 11th 
chapter of this Gospel, another in the 14th, and this 
present, — the great outlines of his character stand 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



37 



clearly and distinctly before us. On the first of these 
occasions, when he finds his Lord determined to return 
to Judasa and to brave the utmost malice of the Jews, 
Thomas says to his fellow-disciples with something of 
a sad resolution, " Let us also go, that we may die 
with Him." On the second occasion, when Christ, 
who would fain cheer their sinking hearts, reminds 
them, " Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know," 
Thomas doubtfully and despondingly rejoins, " Lord, 
we know not whither thou go est, and how can we 
know the way ?" And on this present occasion, when 
the other disciples in the joy of their souls declare to 
him, " We have seen the Lord," he has no share in 
their joy, but only replies, " Except I shall see in his 
hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into 
the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his 
side, I will not believe." 

By the aid of these three scriptures, and by the light 
which they cast upon one another, we may recognize, 
I think, in Thomas a most true affection and hearty 
devotion to his Lord, — if his Lord goes into danger, 
he will go and die with Him,— yet at the same time a 
certain slowness of faith ; for why not go and live 
with that Lord ? why anticipate danger and death in 
his company ? We see in him a readiness to look at 
things on their sadder and darker side, a temperament 
naturally melancholic and desponding — a certain 
amount of self-will and determined adherence to an 
opinion of his own once taken up. He and Nathanael 
formed, as one has said, the two opposite extremes in 
the line of the Apostles, if indeed Nathanael was 



38 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



such ; the one of a childlike faith, the other tempted to 
give over-much scope to the critical faculties of the 
mind. 

And may we not thus only too easily account for 
his absence on that Easter morn ? The other disciples 
have come together with a trembling expectation, 
which they hardly perhaps dare own to themselves, 
that the Crucified shall yet be the Risen ; they remem- 
ber words which fell strangely once upon their ears, 
but which haunt them now, in which He spoke of a 
rising after three days. What if He should prove the 
Prince of Life after all ? and that bitter cross, those 
mists of darkness which hung on his brow, that wrap- 
ping in the clean linen of his lifeless body, that sealing 
and making sure of his sepulchre, not pledges of 
death, but passages to life ? The thought of this, or 
rather a dim unacknowledged hope of this, has drawn 
them together ; the bond that bound them with one 
another they will not admit that it is snapped. Thus 
is it with them ; but not so with Thomas. He will 
not hear of any hope ; he will tread his own dark way 
alone ; his Lord, the Lord whom he loved so well, is 
dead ; he can attend Him with faithful, loving thoughts 
to his grave ; but all is over there : who ever heard 
of one rising from the dead, and bursting the barriers 
of the grave ? When therefore the others surround 
him with their joyful annunciation, " We have seen 
the Lord," even this is not enough to change his 
sorrow into joy, to cause him to put off his sackcloth, 
and gird himself with gladness. He cleaves with a 
certain fixed pertinacity to his own conclusion. The 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



39 



Lord is dead ; and they who speak of having seen Him 
living, must be deceived. Thomas does not so sin 
against his fellow-disciples as to imagine that they are 
deceiving him, but- only that they have been themselves 
deceived. They have believed too lightly, and on 
evidence which a wise man would count insufficient. 
They have seen, as they say ; but have they touched ? 
have they handled ? It might have been a ghost, a 
phantom, an unreal mockery, an imposture ; why did 
they not, when they had the opportunity, put this to 
the proof? And if they did, if in obedience to 
Christ's command they actually touched and handled * 
and only so believed, why do they demand belief from 
him on slighter evidence than satisfied themselves? 
For his part he will not believe till he has himself 
touched and handled — till he has the evidence of his 
own senses — till by actual sight and touch he is able 
to connect this appearance, this apparition, as he 
would imply, with his own Lord who three days since 
hung pierced and wounded on the cross, and was laid 
in his grave. Unless he may do this, he will not 
believe. 

For eight days, in just punishment of this his unbe- 
lief, he walks in gloom, while the other apostles, and 
the faithful women, and many a humble disciple, are 
walking in the light ; he like some low and gloomy 
vale, untouched, ungladdened by the rays of the risen 
sun, while all the neighboring heights long since were 
smitten and lighted up with his glory. At the end of 



* Luke xxiv. 39. 



40 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



these eight days, on the ensuing Lord's day, for the 
Lord again claimed the first day of the week for his 
own, they are once more gathered together, and this 
time Thomas is with them ; the others, it may be. wait- 
ing for their Lord's reappearance, and he still closing 
his heart against their joy. Once more that Lord is 
among them — He stands in their midst — He greets 
them with his former salutation, with his " Peace be 
unto you" — and then, turning to Thomas, shows plainly 
for what He is chiefly come, namely, to convince and 
put to shame, to a shame most wholesome to him, this 
doubter ; whose doubt should thus be overruled not 
merely to his own stronger establishment in the faith, 
but to that of all who come after ; so that we may say 
in the language of Augustine, which the church has 
embodied in her Collect of this day, the doubtfulness 
of Thomas, the confirmation of the church (Dubitctio 
Thomce, confirmaUo Fcdesice). And first, He gives 
back to Thomas his own speech, almost word for word, 
witnessing in this way for his own divine omniscience 
and omnipresence, showing plainly that those unbeliev- 
ing and somewhat over-bold and irreverent words, for 
they lie under this fault as well, had not been unheard 
by Him. Thou hast declared that nothing short of 
this evidence will suffice ; well then, thou shalt have 
it : " Keach hither thy finger, and behold my hands ; 
and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side j 
and be not faithless, but believing." 

Observe, I would entreat you, these last words — 
this command to believe ; which therefore to do, or 
not to do, must lie in the power of the will. How 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



41 



many complain that they cannot, when indeed they 
will not, believe ; for the root of unbelief for us all is 
not in the error of our understandings, but in the 
wrong condition of our hearts and affections. The 
command, however, was not addressed in vain to St. 
Thomas. But did he, we may ask with no vain curios- 
ity, did he put his finger into the print of the nails, 
thrust his hand into the pierced side of his Lord? 
Some count that he must have done so — that this too 
was a divine command ; and that he who is presently 
after praised, must needs have obeyed that command. 
But was it a command ? was it not rather a permis- 
sion, which the Lord was far better pleased that he 
did not embrace? If nothing else will convince thee, 
then convince thyself in the way thou hast demanded. 
Better this, than that thou shouldst remain in thy 
doubts. It was a permission, but such a permission 
as God gave to Balaam, when He bade him to go 
with Balak's messengers * — a permission which, even 
while He gave it, He gave in displeasure, and he who 
received it would have done far better to have left it 
unused. You will note that St. John records nothing 
which would imply that Thomas touched ; neither 
does the Lord say in my text, " Thomas, because thou 
hast touched me," but rather, " because thou hast seen 
me, thou hast believed." To me it seems certain that 
Thomas did not touch. Indeed, a great part of the 
glory of the scene would depart, if instead of the elec- 
tric shock of an intuitive and instantaneous convic- 



* Num. xxii. 20. 



42 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



tion, we assume the slow process of the discursive 
faculty, which being satisfactorily completed, he finally 
dismissed his doubts, and for a moral substitute a 
merely sensuous proof. Oh, no ; there is nothing in 
the narration which implies this ; but rather that all 
his doubts and hesitations were scattered in an instant, 
like morning mists before the sun in his strength ; and 
deeply ashamed and humbled that he should ever have 
entertained them, he broke out at once into that ador- 
ing exclamation, " My Lord and my God." 

But to whom are these words addressed ? to Christ 
Himself ? or are they, as some would persuade us, a 
burst of gratitude and adoration addressed to the 
Father, who had so plainly raised this his Son Jesus 
from the dead ? Some, I say, have sought to persuade 
us this last. But who that deals honestly with the 
words can doubt that they are addressed to the risen 
Saviour Himself? or can regard the other application 
as aught but a shift and an evasion of theirs who can- 
not endure an interpretation of the passage which 
would make Christ so plainly to be called God ? 
For, in the first place, nothing was more alien to the 
religious habits of the Jews than that sort of profane, 
or at least irreverent, employment of the name of God 
on any occasion of sudden surprise, which is too much 
in use among ourselves, and which would be thus 
ascribed to St. Thomas. Then, too, we are expressly 
told that he answered and said to Christ, " My Lord 
and my God.' 7 Which being so, we may urge lastly, 
that had this name not belonged to Christ, had it not 
been his by right, He would have repelled it with 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



43 



horror ; with, a horror like that wherewith Paul and 
Barnabas regarded the divine honors which the Ly- 
caonians where preparing to offer to them.* As it 
was, He accepted these names of Lord and God, and, 
in accepting, declared that they were rightfully his 
own ; that Thomas had only uttered the truth concern- 
ing his person, when he gave Him the honor of these 
incommunicable names. And thus the convinced 
doubter becomes, as is sometimes the case, the deepest 
believer ; the very powers and peculiarities of his 
mind which make him hold off so long, which make 
him so hard to win, making him, when he is won, to 
be won more mightily for the truth, to have a firmer 
grasp of it than any. No other apostle had hitherto 
distinctly called Jesus God ; this might have been 
implicitly involved in the confession of Peter,t in 
much which they felt concerning Him, but it had not 
found utterance from the lips of any until now. 

A gentle rebuke for the doubt which he had cher- 
ished so long, with a new beatitude added to the eight 
of the Sermon on the Mount, closes this wondrous 
scene — " Because thou hast seen me, thou hast be- 
lieved : blessed are they that have not seen, and yet 
have believed " — a blessing, dearly beloved, for us, if 
we choose to make it our own ; if only faith, which is 
indeed " the evidence of things not seen," shall supply 
the place of sight, so that we shall be able to say with 
Peter, " Whom having not seen, we love." 

Let us seek to sum up very briefly what has been 



* Acts xiv. 13, 14. 



f Matt. xvi. 16. 



44 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



spoken, and to draw from it one or two lessons which 
it naturally suggests. The little history which has 
occupied us to-day is commonly called, Thomas's un- 
belief. The word is a hard one — yet not too hard. 
We must not seek to clear him of a grave fault whom 
the Scripture does not clear. But at the same time 
there was much to mitigate the gravity of it — to ex- 
plain the condescending love of his Lord to him ; to 
difference his case from that of many a doubter and a 
sceptic who is never like him brought from darkness 
into light, from error to truth, but is rather each day 
entangled more deeply therein. Thomas doubted in 
his Lord's resurrection — but there was no secret desire 
in his heart, out of which this doubt had grown, that 
such a resurrection, setting its seal to the mission and 
divine authority of Christ, might never have taken 
place. On the contrary, he doubted as one who felt 
the news too good to be true. Every desire and long- 
ing of his heart yearned and stretched toward that 
thing which yet his understanding for a while was 
unable to take in. How different is such a doubter as 
this, who would give worlds to get rid of his doubt, — 
for it stands between him and his blessedness, between 
him and his God : — from the doubter who hugs his doubt, 
who would not be rid of it, if he might, to whom 
every difficulty which besets Revelation is welcome, 
because it stands between him and that submission 
which he is determined not to yield to the Gospel of 
Christ ; because it serves him as an excuse, almost as 
a justification, for the disobedience of heart, it may 
be also the disobedience of life, which he will not 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



45 



renounce. Shall Christ work a miracle for such as 
these ? Shall He touch their eyes, that the scales may 
fall away from them? Shall He offer to them his 
hands and his side ? He will not do so. It were use- 
less if He did it ; would only add to their guilt. 
Were they delivered from one doubt, they would pres- 
ently entrench themselves in another. In no specu- 
lative difficulties, which move in the region of the 
understanding, but in the disaffection, the alienation of 
heart and will from God, is the real seat of their un- 
belief ; and only when this alienation is removed, will 
the unbelief be removed. 

Therefore, my brethren, should there be any among 
us visited with doubts, beset with difficulties in regard 
of any part of that which God has revealed of Him- 
self (and in so vast an assembly we can scarcely hope 
that some such an one there should not be), it greatly 
behoves such diligently to examine in what temper 
they entertain and deal with these perplexities of their 
spirits. Are these doubts welcome to you ? these ap- 
parent- contradictions of Scripture to some of the later 
discoveries of science, or apparent contradictions of 
one part of it to another, or difficulties of reconciling 
its statements with your notions of the righteousness 
of God, greedily snatched at by you, that so you may 
escape the unwelcome necessity of yielding obedience 
to its precepts and commands ? Be sure that for you, 
continuing in this temper, there is no blessing in store 
such as that which overtook him whose memory the 
church celebrates to-day. 

But are you yearning to believe, to see removed out 



46 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



of your way every obstacle which stands between you 
and the full affiance of faith ; do you long to yield 
yourself to Him, of whom you feel that He alone could 
satisfy all the deepest needs of your soul, that if there 
are words of eternal life any where, He has those 
words ; if there is truth any where, He is that truth ; 
are your doubts your misery, because they stand be- 
tween you and this your highest blessedness ? then we 
dare to hope that this, the blessedness of Thomas, may 
one day be yours. We do not indeed dare to say that 
there is not a sinful element in every difficulty which 
keeps us from God. There was such, an overweening 
estimate of self, of the powers of his own mind, with 
other faults, in that blessed Apostle of whom we have 
been speaking to-day. But still our God is one who 
does not deal with us after our sins ; and to you thus 
minded, to you, if only you thus reach out after this 
Saviour, He will yet show Himself alive by many infal- 
lible proofs. He will stand before you — He will show 
you his hands and his side, his hands wounded, his 
side pierced for you. There will be something of a 
sad rebuke in this showing — a rebuke that you should 
have stood out so long, that when your brethren were 
satisfied, you should not have been satisfied — should 
have refused to accept their testimony, the testimony 
of the wise and good, the church of all the ages, that 
this was the Christ, the Saviour of the world — who 
was dead, and is alive, and now liveth for evermore ; 
but a rebuke of which the sadness, with all the shame 
for those doubts entertained too long, shall be swal- 
lowed up in joy, in the joy that you have found Him at 



THE INCREDULITY OF THOMAS. 



47 



length, Him who was all along the desire of your soul, 
and to whom you are now able at length to say from 
the depths of a convinced and worshipping heart — 
" My Lord and my God." 



SERMON V. 



THE COATS OP SKINS. 

Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, 
and clothed them. — Gen. iii. 21. 

AN ancient interpreter of Scripture, one of the early 
Fathers, extolling the worth and dignity of the 
book of Revelation, and inviting to a close and pa- 
tient study of it, has not scrupled to declare that there 
are in it as many mysteries as there are words. True 
as these words are, taken with that natural limitation 
which of course they demand, as applied to that won- 
derful book, they may be affirmed to be truer still in 
regard of the first three chapters of Genesis, above all 
in regard of this third chapter from which my text is 
derived ; for this assuredly is the most important 
chapter in the whole Bible. 43 1 is the only chapter 
which, if we could conceive it as being withdrawn, 
would leave all the rest of Scripture unintelligible.^/ 
'-Take this away, this record of the fall, and of the 
penal consequences of the fall, and of the provision 
which God so graciously made to repair these conse- 
quences, to build up the breach which Adam had made, 
take this away, and you take away the key of knowl- 
edge to all the rest of the Bible. Nor is it the Bible 

(48) 



THE COATS OF SKINS. 



49 



alone which would thus become unintelligible ; but 
the whole condition of the world around us, of man 
and of nature, of our own selves above all, would 
present itself to us as an inexplicable riddle. What 
a riddle, indeed, does it evermore continue to all those 
who refuse to accept the solution of it here offered ! 
There are indeed in this chapter almost as many mys- 
teries as there are words. 

But among all these mysteries I must limit myself to 
one, — to that contained in the words of my text : " Unto 
Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make 
coats of skins, and clothed them." I say, and I am 
uttering in this no mere fancy of my own, that much is 
hidden in these words ; with a sense upon the surface, 
there is also a sense below the surface ; and yet how 
easily we might miss the latter. How easily we might 
pass by, as doubtless thousands have passed by, the 
profound significance of this notice, made with so little 
pomp of words, and read in it nothing more than an 
act of ordinary kindness whereby God ministered to 
the bodily needs of his fallen children, for whom with 
sin had come shame ; and who, exiles from Eden, 
should henceforth be exposed to the shar,p and wintry 
blasts, and all those distemper atures of the air which 
were among the secondary consequences of the fall. 
As such a record of the kindness of God at such a mo- 
ment, the words would indeed be precious ; but how 
infinitely more precious when we read in them, and 
draw out of them, what better they contain even than 
this ; when they reveal to us the deeper mystery which 
lies behind. 

3 



50 



THE COATS OF SKINS. 



Let us look back for an instant at the history pre- 
ceding. Our first parents, so long as they stood in 
their original uprightness, were clothed with their own 
innocency as with a garment, and needed no other. 
But shame followed close on sin, and under the influ- 
ence of this shame they proceeded to make for them- 
selves such coverings as they could, yet such as they 
were conscious themselves to be slight and insufficient ; 
and in proof that they felt them so, when they heard 
the voice of the Lord God calling them in the garden 
they were afraid, because, in Adam's own words, they 
were naked, and they went and hid themselves from 
Him. But now being drawn from their hiding-place, 
and having received from the mouth of their Judge at 
once the sentence of death and the sentence of life, the 
Lord God proceeds Himself to do for them what they 
had vainly attempted to do for themselves, — to make 
clothing for them, such as shall be indeed effectual, 
such as shall enable them to endure his else intolerable 
eye. This, however, He can only do at the cost of a 
life. Some harmless beast, which would never have 
died if they had not sinned, must perish, and perish by 
God's immediate decree and act, that they may be 
clothed ; that its covering may henceforth be their 
covering, in which they may not be ashamed to appear 
before God. 

Is not, I ask you, the whole mystery of our justifica- 
tion wrapped up in these most precious details ? haye 
we not here a clear prophecy of the Lamb slain, to the 
end that the righteousness which was his might become 
ours? Trace it through all its steps. For, first, we 



THE COATS OF SKINS. 



51 



have here the fact, as in a parable, that man is utterly 
impotent to bring to pass any satisfying righteousness 
of his own. He can see his shame, but he cannot ef- 
fectually cover or conceal it. Adam and Eve, they 
could see and feel that they were guilty, miserable, 
naked — unfit for one another's company, (for it is only 
the pardoned that have fellowship one with another,) 
still more utterly unfit for the presence of God ; but 
when they endeavored to help themselves, what profited 
all the cloaks and coverings of their shame which they 
devised for their own selves? No sooner did they 
hear the voice of the Lord God in the garden than 
they confessed in that act of hiding themselves their 
sense of the worthlessness of these. 

And wherein, my brethren, is any garment of our 
own righteousness which we devise for ourselves bet- 
ter than those aprons of fig-leaves of theirs ? What 
is it but a garment narrower than we can wrap our- 
selves withal ? It may seem to serve its purposes for 
ja while, to constitute a sufficient protection for us ; 
we may rest upon it, upon our decency of behavior, 
the absence of any gross vices from our lives, our dili- 
gence in the performance of the duties of our calling, 
our kindness to others, our forwardness in good works. 
Fig-leaves all ! and we shall prove them such. Let 
God once call to us, let us once hear his voice sin- 
gling out us in particular, let Him speak to us out of 
the whirlwind, show us a glimpse of his glory, and in 
his glory of our own shame, let it once come to this 
that we stand face to face with Him the Holy One, 
and we shall find how little all these devices of our 



52 



THE COATS OF SKINS. 



own can ao for us, we shall stand shivering, naked, 
and ashamed before Him. Like Job we may have 
washed ourselves with snow water, and made our 
hands never so clean ; but He can plunge us in the 
ditch, so that our own clothes shall abhor us.* And 
if we are only drawn out of our refuges of lies, if we 
only make this discovery of our nakedness and defile- 
ment, when it is too late to seek and to obtain any 
better covering, we may then cry to the rocks to cover 
us, and to the hills to hide us ; but neither they, nor 
any other shelter, neither height nor depth, shall con- 
ceal us from those eyes of fire which shall at once look 
us through and consume us. 

But while we thus learn that man cannot clothe 
himself, we learn also that God undertakes to clothe 
him. They were his hands which made the skins of 
beasts into garments for Adam and for Eve. What a 
blessed mystery is here ! How much is contained for 
us in this gracious, this condescending act of God 
toward them whom just before He had judged ! The % 
bands which bind man to God have not been broken 
by man's sin — or rather, though broken once, they 
have been reunited again. He can yet devise a way 
by which his banished shall return home. As else- 
where He has said in ivord, " I am the Lord that heal- 
eth thee," so here He says in act, " 1 am the Lord that 
dotheih thee." He does not abhor man in his fallen 
estate, however that state may be one in itself suffi- 
cient to provoke abhorring. He beholds man, to use 

* Job ix. 30, 31. 



THE COATS OF SKINS. 



53 



the image of Ezekiel, as a new-born infant jast out at 
the moment of its nativity to the loathing of its per- 
son, polluted in its own blood ; and He spreads his 
skirt over it, and says unto it, Live. This is the 
second lesson of our history — that when man has, so 
to speak, unclothed himself, stripped himself bare of 
that righteousness with which he was arrayed at the 
first, God Himself undertakes to find garments for 
him, to the end that the shame of his nakedness may 
not appear. 

But, thirdly, we note in this Scripture that the cloth- 
ing which God found for Adam could only have been 
obtained at the cost of a life, and that the life of one 
unguilty, of one who had no share nor part in the sin 
which made the providing of it needful. So it must 
necessarily have been. A beast, one or more, must 
have been slain before these coats of skins could have 
been prepared ; and it must have been slain by the 
act of God. I do not scruple to say that we have 
here the first institution of sacrifice ; and what is 
more noticeable still, God Himself the institutor ; not 
merely enjoining, commanding, but Himself ordain- 
ing, showing the way ; and the central idea of sacri- 
fice, as it afterwards unfolded itself in manifold rites, 
is wrapped up in this first sacrifice of Paradise. In 
proof that here we have nothing less than the first of 
that long series of sacrifices which were to follow, a 
type and shadow, a prelude and prophecy, of that 
crowning sacrifice on Calvary, in which all others 
were to find their consummation and their end, I ask 
you to note how close the similarity between that and 



54 



THE COATS OF SKINS. 



this, — in what wonderful ways this points to and pre- 
signifies that. Already in Paradise there is not merely 
a prophecy of Christ in words, " The seed of the 
woman shall bruise the serpent's head," but a prophecy 
in act. A creature which has known no sin comes 
here notwithstanding, and by the will and act of God, 
under the law of death, under all the penal conse- 
quences of sin, dies, that so from man the sinner those 
same penal consequences of his sin may be turned 
away, — that man, who had stripped himself of the 
robe of his own innocency, may yet be clothed, though 
not now in anything of his own, but in a garment 
which is furnished him by another. What can all this 
point to but to Him, the Lamb of God, in whom was 
no sin, and who yet endured the penalty of our sin, 
died that we might live, and who thus died by the de- 
terminate counsel and foreknowledge of God, — God 
Himself putting Him to grief, bidding his sword to 
awake against the Man that was his fellow, and all 
for our sakes, that He might thus lay on our divine 
Substitute the iniquities of us all, that He might thus 
find a ransom for us, and One by whose stripes we 
should be healed, and by whose righteousness we 
should be clothed. my brethren, we hear in the 
New Testament of the Lord our righteousness, of 
Christ our righteousness ; He is plainly declared to 
us there : but He is not obscurely intimated in these 
words of Genesis, in this sacrament, for so we may 
call it, which was accomplished in Paradise, when to 
" Adam and to his wife did the Lord God make coats 
of skins, and clothed them." 



THE COATS OF SKINS. 



55 



lAnd are not the lessons which we may draw from 
all this plain and palpable enough ? As for instance, 
this first, — that there is no robe of our own righteous- 
ness which can cover us, which can conceal our shame. 
Those were poor miserable palliations of their dis- 
honor which the guilty progenitors of our race in- 
vented and contrived for themselves ; and ours, be 
sure, will be as poor, or poorer still. What ! will you 
stand before God, before Him of the eyes of fire, 
before Him who charges his angels with folly, before 
Him in whose sight the heavens themselves are not 
pure, with nothing better to cover you than the rags 
of your own well-doings, — boasting, it may be, like 
that wretched Pharisee, that you are not as other men, 
adulterers, extortioners, and the like, — glorying in 
your virtues, your uprightness, your honesty, your 
almsdeeds, your diligence in good works, your con- 
stant attendance at God's house, your frequent partici- 
pation in holy sacraments ? — all of them good, all more 
or less indispensable for any who would see life, but 
yet constituting no part of the righteousness of a 
man in which he is to stand accepted and justified 
before God ; and he is miserably mistaken if he so 
regard them. 

But, secondly, that righteousness which we have not 
in ourselves we must be content, yea glad, yea thank- 
ful, to receive it at the hands of God. Pride may 
revolt at this ; the old Adam may kick at this ; but 
till a man is content to put his mouth in the dust, to 
give all glory to God, and to take all shame to him- 
self, to renounce all trust in anything which lie has 



56 



THE COATS OF SKINS. 



wrought or ever will have wrought for himself, to 
place all trust in what God has wrought for him, he 
is not near to the kingdom of God. How gladly 
must our first parents have cast aside the poor, inef- 
fectual makeshifts which they had sewn together for 
themselves, when God had supplied them with cloth- 
ing sufficient for their utmost needs ? With like glad- 
ness let us cast everything away which would hinder 
us from making our own that durable clothing, those 
garments at once of use and of beauty, which God 
has in Christ provided for us. 

But, lastly, not Christ by his life, but by his life and 
death, and mainly by his death, supplies these gar- 
ments for our spirits' need. It is not to the Lamb of 
God, but to the Lamb slain, that we must look. Those 
coats of skins of which we have been speaking to-day 
were so far dearly bought, that they were bought at 
the price of a life, and the very existence of them 
involved and implied a death. And so it was ever 
after in every sacrifice which followed. The sacrifice 
must die, if he on whose behalf it was offered was to 
have any profit by it. Without shedding of blood 
was no remission. It was so with Him who crowned 
and completed all the sacrifices which went before, to 
whom they had all pointed. It is his death which is 
our life. It is because He was stripped that we are 
clothed ; because He hung naked upon his cross, there- 
fore is it that the shame of our nakedness shall not 
appear ; — that is, if indeed it shall not ; for it is for 
us to determine whether it shall appear or no. If we 
would not have it appear, then let us buy of Hira 



THE COATS OF SKIXS. 



57 



white raiment ; let us seek to stand before God ac- 
cepted in Him ; his righteousness imputed to us, and 
all our sins covered by that ample robe. Yet even 
this is not all ; as we must ever seek to preserve the 
due balance between one truth of God and another, 
I will therefore conclude with this warning word, 
namely, that to put on Christ is something more even 
than this. It is so to appropriate the righteousness of 
Christ that it becomes our righteousness, life of our 
life, woven into the web and tissue of our own moral 
and spiritual being ; if in one sense a garment separa- 
ble from us, yet in another as our own flesh and blood, 
having become part and parcel of our very selves ; 
a Christ for us, who is a Christ in us as well. Let 
us as little dare to separate these two truths*as to con- 
found them. 



3* 



SERMON VI. 



THE SLAVERY OF SIN. 
Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. — John viii. 34. 

WE are unhappily so used to take words, even 
words of God, in a vague, general way, without 
attaching any very distinct force or meaning to them, 
that an announcement like that we have just heard 
may sometimes almost sound like a truism in our ears. 
" He that committeth sin is the servant of sin." We 
hear these words, and they do not reveal to us the 
consequences of sin under a new and terrible aspect. 
This they will only do, when we give to the word 
"servant/ 7 or "slave", as it might be rendered, the 
emphasis which the divine Speaker meant it should 
have. " He that committeth sin is the slave of sin." 
That Lord who in so many gracious ways has sought 
to scare and separate us from evil, does so here by 
setting forth to us that it is a slavery ; that however 
men may think and fancy at the beginning that their 
sins shall be servants to them, it is never long before 
they inevitably become the servants to their sins. 

He would teach us this, and all experience confirms 
it, that any wilful sin, admitted into the heart, having 
once gained a footing there, cannot remain at a stand- 
(58) 



THE SLAVERY OF SIN. 



59 



still, but must ever bring more and more the whole 
man under its dominion, laying ever new and ever 
stronger fetters upon him ; so that the chains of evil 
habits which may have been but as spiders' threads at 
the first, so easily might they by a vigorous effort of 
the will have been snapped asunder, become links of 
iron at the last. He would bid us know that sin, this 
tyrannous mistress of our lives, puts him who has 
accepted her yoke ever to viler drudgeries than before ; 
so that many things which he would have shrunk back 
from at first, while his conscience was yet unseared, 
being past feeling he does greedily at the last, and 
without hesitation or remorse : small sins in him 
growing into great, the petty purloiner from the com- 
mon stock into the traitor who sold his Lord ; sins of 
desire turning into sins of act ; the cockatrice's egg 
hatching into the fiery flying serpent ; the man falling 
from one wickedness to another ; and because he did 
not like to retain God in his knowledge, being given 
over to vile affections and to those penal blindnesses 
with which, by an inexorable law, God visits and 
avenges the free indulgence in unlawful desires. 

But here let me pause an instant, and ask you to 
consider with me why it is that sin has this fearful 
power of enslaving those , who had no intention of 
yielding themselves absolutely and without reserve to 
its dominion — of growing, increasing, more and more 
leavening the whole life, penetrating it through and 
through, till, it may be, the whole is leavened ; — how 
it comes to pass that no man can say, Thus far I will 
advance in sin and no further ; or, In this I will allow 



60 



THE SLAVERY OF SIN. 



myself, but then I will stop short ; — why it is that all 
such calculations are sure to be defeated, and that 
none can measure out to himself the exact amount of 
evil which he will commit. The reason is, that no sin, 
however separable or separate from other sins it may 
seem, can be regarded as an isolated thing ; every sin 
stands in connection with a whole spiritual kingdom 
of darkness, from which it came forth, and with which 
it maintains correspondencies and relations still, even 
after it has found lodgement in the sinner's heart. The 
existence of this dark kingdom, this kingdom of envy 
and hate and lust and pride, which is around us, and 
would fain be within us — the existence of Satan and 
his angels, of these tempters ever watchful to find an 
open door in the heart, and where that door has been 
opened but for one sin, by force or fraud to make an 
entrance for many — this fact that there is a kingdom 
of darkness around us, as well as a kingdom of light, 
that we have affinities with the one no less than with 
the other, and that sins no less than graces are linked 
together by a mysterious law one with another, it is 
this which explains to us the deep significance of the 
Psalmist's prayer, " Keep thy servant from presump- 
tuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me." It is 
this which forbids us to believe that any sin, wilfully 
admitted into a heart, will remain quiescent there ; 
which makes us sure that it must stir and move, must 
cast forth its roots and fibres on every side, must 
gradually vitiate and corrupt portions hitherto sound- 
er and sincerer of the life no less than that part which 
it originally claimed for its own. Nay, not merely 

♦ 



THE SLAVERY OF SIN. 



61 



some portions, but all — perhaps itself gradually taking- 
possession of all. For oftentimes a ruling sin will 
have power little by little to color the whole life with 
its own tints ; to assimilate everything there to itself 
— as in ever wider circles to absorb ail into its own 
vortex, being as it were a gulf, a maelstrom, into 
which all which was better and nobler in the man is 
irresistibly attracted and drawn, and is there swal- 
lowed up, and for ever disappears. 

There are many sins which have this absorbing 
character, whose property it is ever to encroach more 
and more on the regions of the moral and spiritual 
life not as yet possessed by them, never content till 
they have reared their trophies on the wreck and ruin 
of every nobler faculty and power. All sins perhaps 
have more or less this character ; yet we may signalize 
two or three, concerning which it is eminently true. 
Vanity is such a sin. This may seem to us often little 
worse than a harmless foible ; yet physicians will tell 
you that there is almost no sin which gives more 
inmates to the madhouse than does this ; and how 
many through it shall have missed the crown of life 
only the last day shall declare. The love of money is 
another such a sin, growing by what it feeds on j and 
ever claiming to exercise a wider, a fiercer, a more 
relentless tyranny and dominion in the soul where it 
rules as lord ; ever resenting more and more any free- 
dom of action, any generosity in dealing, any open- 
handedness in giving, any bowels of compassion shown • 
on the part of him, who meant indeed to allow this 
sin, but did not intend at the first that it should bear 



62 



THE SLAVERY OF SIX. 



sway in his heart and life as sole and absolute and 
tyrannous lord. 

The lust of the flesh indulged and allowed proves 
oftentimes another such a sin ; it has a fearful tendency 
to become such. And then what a hideous tyranny 
will this be ! In the nature of things, sin in act will 
be only from time to time ; but, perhaps more defiling 
still, as more cold-blooded, sin in thought and imag- 
ination may be, and often will be, almost continual. 
What a workshop of unholy, impure fancies will the 
heart of the man be who has given himself over to this 
spirit of uncleanness ! On the anvil of that heart 
what foul and ugly imagination will be forging and 
fashioning for evermore ; and the unholy fires which 
have been kindled there, how will they in their fierce 
devouring hunger be seeking every where and in 
every thing for the pabulum which should nourish and 
the fuel which should feed them ! There is nothing 
for such a man which will not be made to minister to 
impurity ; " having eyes full of adultery, which cannot 
cease from sin." By a dreadful alchemy of hell he 
will extract what is foul from the fairest ; what will 
yield healthful nourishment to others will only yield 
poison to him. Noble books of antiquity, or famous 
poems of the modern world, if there should be, alas ! 
one tainted spot in them, passing over whatever of 
pure and elevating and ennobling they may offer, he 
will fasten upon this, as one who can feed upon 
rottenness and corruption, and can feed only upon 
these. fearful condition of him, for whom all 
which contributes most to the beauty of earth, or 



THE SLAVERY OF SIN. 



63 



which will go far to make up the glory of heaven, the pu- 
rity of womanhood, the innocency of children, the con- 
tinence of manhood, is as something which he would 
fain see to disappear • for it stands in his way, its mere 
presence rebukes him, who now knows of no other joys 
than those which are to be found in the sty of Epicurus, 
and the wallowing in the mire. fearful condition 
of him for whom no simple pleasures, no pure delights 
exist any more ; whom nothing can please which has not 
the serpent's slime upon it ; to whom literally " nothing- 
is pure," for his very " mind and conscience is defiled." 

Oh, if some young man, timidly beginning a course 
of departure from God, with as yet many restraints of 
conscience, of a godly education upon him, still dwell- 
ing within the charmed circle of a mother's prayers, 
not yet having quite escaped the influence and re- 
membrances of a holy home, could realize himself to 
himself, as hereafter he shall be, how low he will fall, 
what swine's husks he will come to, could he picture 
to himself his future boldness in vice, his shamelessness 
in sinning, the day, not so far off, when he, now 
timidly sipping at the cup of a forbidden joy, shall 
drink up iniquity like water, and work all uncleanness 
with greediness, foaming out his own shame — could he 
thus picture his future self to himself, he would per- 
haps start back in horror and amazement : it may be 
that he would not venture on that step which shall be 
as the first term of so fatal a series. Or again, if in 
the confidence and jollity with which presently, some- 
what bolder grown, the prodigal launches forth on 
ways of his own choosing, saying to himself that 



64 



THE SLAVERY OF SIN. 



to-morrow shall be as to-day, and much more abun- 
dant, that he shall have peace though he add drunken- 
ness to thirst, and walk in the imaginations of his 
own heart — he could see the waste desolations of his 
life at some future and it may be not distant day, the 
blight of his hopes, the withering of his affections, the 
garlands of a fresh-springing joy for ever struck from 
his brow, the life run to the lees, empty of joy, because 
empty of God who is the source of joy, — if he could 
see the days which shall so soon overtake him, when 
he shall exclaim, " What good shall my life do me ?" 
when friends shall have forsaken him, opportunities 
have passed from him, when the talent he would not 
use shall have been transferred to another, and the 
crown which he might have worn another shall have 
taken, when the dreary present shall be shut in by a 
threatening future and an accusing past, when his feet 
shall be already stumbling upon the dark mountains, — 
if he could see all this, this bankruptcy of all things 
which is so near before him, perhaps he would pause, 
perhaps even now he will pause, and retrace his steps, 
while to retrace them is still possible for him. 

But too often he does not see. His eyes are holden ; 
or, in the flattering glass which the arch-deceiver holds 
up before his eyes, he sees quite another sight, — lying 
prophecies of the future, sin not bitter, the world not 
false, pleasures never palling, judgment never arriving. 
There is a glass, the glass of God's Word, which 
would have shown him these ; but that he has put far 
from him ; for, like Micaiah of Ahab, it prophecies 
no good concerning him, but evil. 



THE SLAVERY OF SIN. 



65 



But ive, my Christian brethren, we who, I trust, 
have believed, and that, without having made miser- 
able proof of it in our own selves, that it is an evil 
and a bitter thing to forsake the Lord our God, what 
shall we say to these things ? Shall it not be this ? 
If there be this rank growth of sin, if it have this 
power of pervading the whole moral being, and sub- 
duing all things to itself, of laying waste and ruining 
all, what is there which can resist this death but a 
life ? what can resist this growth of sin but a growth of 
grace ? or, in other words, a growth and increase from 
God and in God ? If such as we have described it, 
is, or at least may be, in every one of us the life of 
nature, a life which is not life, but death, what remains 
but that we seek the life of grace, which is life indeed ? 
If it be thus to grow out of the root of Adam, if that 
bitter root of the old Adam may in all of us, and ivill 
assuredly in many, put forth these bitterest fruits, 
what is there for us but to seek of God that we of his 
grace may evermore grow out of the sweet root of 
the new Adam, which is Christ ? Nothing short of 
this will meet our needs. Sin seeks to possess us 
wholly. It is, as I have said, a leaven which would 
fain not cease its working in us, till the whole lump 
of our nature is leavened by it. To counterwork, to 
defeat, to expel this, we must seek a principle of good 
which in like manner will embrace our whole life, will 
penetrate, transform, transfigure every part of it into 
its own image and likeness. And where shall this be 
found except in the regeneration, in that transforma- 
tion and transfiguration from above which was made 



66 



THE SLAVERY OF SIN. 



possible, and the germs of it planted in us, on the day 
when we were baptized, and potentially were made 
partakers of Christ and of all powers of the world 
to come ? It is not a bettering of the old man which 
will serve, but the putting on of a new man ; not 
the putting here and there a new patch on the old 
garment of nature, for this patchwork will not hold, 
and the rents will only be made worse, — but the web 
and woof must be made new throughout. Sin is a 
central principle of disobedience to the will and law 
of God ; nothing can overcome this, but a central 
principle of holiness and conformity to that will, 
which only can in Christ be made ours, which can 
only be Christ in us. 

He, and He only, can make us free. Say not then, 
as the proud Jews of old, proud and blind at once, 
" We never were in bondage to any." So far as we 
have committed, or are committing, any sin, we are in 
bondage to it ; "he that committeth sin is the servant 
of sin and that bondage, that servitude will increase 
upon us more and more. But He, who is the Truth, 
has said concerning the Truth, that is, concerning 
Himself, " the Truth shall make you free." Let us 
make trial whether these are not true words, which 
He who is the Truth has spoken, and whether there 
is not indeed for us a freedom in the Truth, that is, 
in Him, which we have vainly looked for elsewhere. 



SERMON VII. 



THE ANGELS' HYMN. 

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly 
host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on 
earth peace, good- will toward men. — Luke ii. 13, 14. 

^ristmas-IIDat]. 

THIS is not the earliest angelic hymn which is re- 
corded or alluded to in Scripture. At the first 
creation, when God had laid the corner-stone of the 
earth, and it stood forth in all its primal beauty and 
perfection, then too " the morning stars sang together, 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy."* What- 
ever doubt there may be in respect of those " sons of 
God " mentioned "in Genesis,f whose apostasy from 
Him did so much to hasten the flood, there can be no 
doubt or difficulty in regard of these. The " sons of 
God " here can be only the angels of heaven, the heav- 
enly host ; for there as yet existed no other who 
could claim, or be competitors with them for this 
name. So was it at the first creation ; and it might 
almost seem on this night of the nativity as if a new 
creation had taken place, for now again we hear of 



* Job xxxviii. 7. 



f vi. 2. 

(67) 



68 



THE ANGELS' HYMN. 



" a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and 
saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
peace, good-will toward men." Nor, if we thus judged, 
should we prove very wide of the truth. There is 
indeed now a new creation, and a new which is more 
glorious than the old. In the creation of the icorld 
God showed forth his power, his wisdom, his love ; 
but in the foundation of the C hurch all these his attri- 
butes shine far more gloriously forth : and that church 
was founded, the corner-stone of it, elect, precious, 
was securely laid, on that day when the Son of God, 
having taken upon Him our flesh, was born of a pure 
Virgin, and was laid in the manger at Bethlehem. 
Most fitly therefore was that day of the New Crea- 
tion, which should repair and restore the breaches of 
the old, ushered in with hymns of gladness ; most 
fitly did " the sons of God " once again shout for joy, 
and welcome with that first Christmas carol which 
this dull earth ever heard, the birth of a Saviour and 
Restorer into the world. 

They witnessed for themselves that they were the 
hosts of heaven, of that heaven in which love only 
dwells, where there is no envy, no evil eye, no grudg- 
ing at another's good, in these songs and praises of 
theirs. For wherefore did they break the stillness of 
that Christmas night with these their hymns of thanks- 
giving ? Was it for any restoration or addition of 
happiness to themselves or to their fellows ? Oh, no ! 
but for peace on earth, and good-will toward men. 
He that was now born took not upon Him the nature 
of angels, but of men. He came not into the world 



THE ANGELS' HYMN. 



69 



to save angels, but for the salvation of the children of 
men. Nor was the state and condition of angels to 
receive advancement and glory by his coming, but the 
state and condition of men ; nay, more, to receive it 
in such a sort as might seem to impeach the dignity, 
and in part diminish the lustre, of those excellent 
creatures, seeing that an inferior nature, the nature of 
man, was now in the person of Him who had become 
a man to be advanced to a throne of divine majesty, 
and to become Head and King not only over men, but 
of the heavenly host itself ; that Child, whose birth 
these were celebrating this night, to be exalted at 
the right hand of God, " angels and authorities and 
powers being made subject unto Him." 

This hindered not their joy, nor yet did they repine 
and grudge that there were mercy and deliverance for 
the children of men, while there was no deliverance, 
no restoration for such of their own hosts as had fall- 
en. When these, the angels, left their first estate, fell 
from their golden seats, there was no attempt to break 
their fall ; no mystery of redemption for their recov- 
ery, for the drawing them up again from the gulf of 
perdition to those glorious thrones which they had 
left vacant in heaven. Nay rather, it was now plainly 
seen who were to occupy the room which they had left 
empty there. It is this mystery of God's love, not to 
themselves, but to us, this unsearchable wisdom of 
God, planning our redemption, not their advancement 
in glory, which causes them to sing their Te Deums in 
heaven. Woe indeed to us, if we find no argument 
for praise in that which concerns us so much more 



TO 



THE ANGELS' HYMN. 



nearly than it concerned them : if they could praise 
God for the salvation of another race, and we cannot, 
or with cold dead, hearts will not. praise Him for the 
salvation of our own. 

What is the burden of their song ? It is brief. It 
is comprised in two, or in three short clauses at the 
most ; and yet in this narrow compass it contains how 
much, contains everything. All that Peter and Paul 
and John and the other Evangelists and apostles labo- 
riously unfolded, the whole Gospel of the grace of 
God, is shut up in these words ; shut up in them as 
truly as the oak is shut up in the acorn, and to be 
unfolded in due time. 

And first, " Glory to God in the highest." This is 
the first jubilant adoring exclamation of the angels, 
as they beheld the fulfilment of that eternal counsel 
of God, which, partially known no doubt long since 
and foreseen in heaven, was now at length actually 
accomplished upon earth ; as they behold the Lord of 
glory, Him whom they had worshipped in heaven, be- 
come an infant of days, and as such laid in that rugged 
cradle at Bethlehem. But what is the exact force of 
these words ? Can God receive increase of glory, 
more than He has already ? Is it not the very idea 
of God that He is infinitely glorious, and that this He 
always has been and ever will be ? Assuredly so : in 
Himself He is as incapable of increase as of diminu- 
tion of glory. But ice may ascribe more glory to 
Him, more, that is, of the honor due unto his name, 
as we know Him more, as the infinite perfection of 
his being, his power, his Avisdom, his love, is gradu- 



THE ANGELS' HYMN. 



11 



ally revealed to us. So too may angels ; and the 
heavenly host declare in this voice of theirs, that the 
incarnation of the Son of God was a new revelation, 
a new outcoming to them of the unsearchable riches 
of the wisdom, the power, the love, that are in God ; 
that in that church of the redeemed which now had 
become possible, would be displayed mysteries of grace 
and goodness which transcended and surpassed all 
God's past dealings with men or with angels. 

We have St. Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians 
declaring the same thing ; that heaven was taught by 
what was done upon earth ; that angels, as they stooped 
from the shining battlements on high and looked 
toward this dim speck of earth, and on one obscure 
province of it, and at a little village, and to one low- 
liest household there, learned about the mind of God 
things which they had not learned, standing upon the 
steps of the throne, and beholding the unapproachable 
brightness of Him who sat thereon. Can we doubt 
this ? Does not St. Paul declare that he was himself 
set to proclaim the mystery which from the beginning 
of the world had been hid in God, more or less con- 
cealed therefore from men and angels alike ? And 
why to proclaim it ? he proceeds to give the answer ; 
— " to the intent that now unto the principalities and 
powers in heavenly places," in other words, to the 
angelic host, " might be known by the church the 
manifold wisdom of God."* Here then is the explana- 
tion of the angels' song, of this " Glory to God in the 



Ephes. lii. 8-10. 



12 



THE ANGELS' HYMN. 



highest " — this melody of heaven, to bear a part in 
which they invite and challenge the listening children 
of men upon earth. 

And indeed that way of salvation which God has 
thus devised was worthy of the admiration of angels ; 
so original, so grand, implying such infinite love and 
condescension, that it must have been in great part 
inconceivable before it actually took place. Many, 
alas ! have found it inconceivable even after it has 
taken place. Not merely was it the best way, but we 
may be bold to say, it was the only way whereby men 
could be saved. It is sometimes contended that we 
speak presumptuously, when we speak thus ; that we 
have no right to limit the power of God, or to affirm 
that anything is impossible for Him, or that He could 
have devised no other way for bringing his banished 
home. Now, doubtless all things are possible to God ; 
but yet with one limitation, that they must be thiugs 
consistent with those supreme moral attributes, that 
truth, that righteousness, that love, stript of which, 
God would not be God any more. And keeping all 
this in view, it is not, I think, too much to affirm, it is 
not overboldly said, that there was no other way but 
this of the incarnation of the Son of God, followed 
as that was by his life of obedience, his death of pro- 
pitiation, his resurrection in power, his ascension in 
glory, whereby men could be saved. What should we 
think of a king, some of whose people were in bitter 
bondage in a foreign land, if he, knowing that he 
might have them back by simply sending for them, or 
at most by paying a ransom of silver and gold, chose 



THE ANGELS' HYMN. 



instead of this, and when this was free to him, to send 
his own son to serve that bitter bondage in their stead, 
to endure all outrages, indignities, wrongs, even death 
itself in obtaining their release ? Would either wis- 
dom or love shine out gloriously here ? Could he 
reasonably demand the boundless gratitude of the 
ransomed on the ground of the costly sacrifice which 
their deliverance entailed, when that deliverance might 
have been effected at so much easier and cheaper a 
rate ? No, dear brethren ; when God chose that cost- 
liest means of our deliverance, sending his own Son 
in likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, we may be quite 
sure that at no lower price would our redemption have 
been possible, that nothing short of this could have 
satisfied that righteousness of his, which He was bound 
to maintain ; which He could not forego, without 
shaking to their strong foundation those eternal pil- 
lars on which the moral universe reposes ; we may 
be quite sure that no weaker, poorer motives than 
those in this way presented to man, would have ever 
succeeded in making him holy, and thus capable of 
blessedness. 

But here was a way effectual. God could continue 
just, and yet a justifier of sinners, showing in the same 
act his hatred of sin and his love of the sinner ; and 
therefore did the angels sing at the incarnation of the 
Son of God, " Glory to God in the highest," while at 
the same time they added to this, as not inconsistent 
with this, nay rather as following from this, " and on 
earth peace, good-will toward men." That same won- 
drous act which brought such glory to God, namely, 
4 



THE ANGELS' HYMN. 



the taking of our flesh by the Son of God, brought 
also peace on earth, and declared God's good-will 
towards men. For He who was upon this day born 
was no other than the very Prince of Peace, the author 
of all peace, who not merely spoke peace, but who 
made peace, peace for man with his God, peace for 
man with himself, peace for man with his brother. 
Christ in all these three aspects is the author of our 
peace. 

First, He made peace for man with his God. Man 
was alienated and estranged from God by wicked 
works ; he knew that he hated God, and he feared 
that God hated him j his whole life was a fighting 
with God, or a flying from God. They could not 
walk together ; for they were not agreed. And God, 
though He did not hate man, yet hated his sin, and 
neither would nor could bless him so long as he con- 
tinued in his sin. But now the Child was born who 
should kill the enmity in the heart of man, who 
should make a propitiation to enable the love of God 
to flow freely forth on the sinner as it could not flow 
before. Thus peace in the highest and most blessed 
sense of all came down from heaven, and made its 
dwelling-place upon earth, when the Son of God was 
born. 

But He is the Prince of Peace in another sense. In 
setting men at peace with God, He sets them at peace 
with themselves. Oh, what turmoil, what strife, what 
ceaseless agitation are in the hearts of sinful men ! 
what vain hopes, what eating cares, what passionate 
regrets, what impotent struggles of the better nature 



THE ANGELS' HYMN. 



75 



within them against the worse which is mastering it- 
more and more. Nor only this helpless struggle of 
the weaker good against the stronger evil, but one 
evil fighting within them against another, and sin in 
arms against sin. And then too oftentimes, what black 
remorse, what fierce hatred of the sinner against him- 
self, what innermost self-loathing, as in memory he paces 
back through the hideous gallery of the evils which he 
has done. " There is no peace, saith my God, for the 
wicked." But Christ comes, and speaks the word of m 
peace, the word of forgiveness ; and there is a great 
calm upon the stormy sea ; and he that a little while 
ago was crying and cutting himself with stones, is sit- 
ting at Jesus' feet, clothed and in his right mind. In 
this sense also the birth of the Saviour deserved to be 
proclaimed as the advent of peace upon earth. 

But man, at enmity with God and with himself, 
is also at enmity with his brother. " From whence 
come wars and fightings among you ? Come they not 
hence, even of your lusts that war in your members ? " 
Selfishness, or an undue love of self, is the root of all the 
divisions upon earth, from the trivial brawl that dis- 
turbs the peace of a village, to the mighty war which 
makes a desolation over half the world. But He who 
was as upon this day born came to uproot this selfish- 
ness in the heart of man, to plant love there in its 
room ; and, distant as that day may be still, it will yet 
arrive, when the nations shall not learn war any more. 
Whenever that day shall come, it will be Christ, and 
Christ only, who shall have persuaded men to beat 
their swords into plowshares, and to unlearn all 



76 



THE ANGELS' HYMN. 



those arts of mutual destruction which now claim so 
much of their skill, and occupy so large a portion of 
their thoughts. This Man shall be the peace. It was 
then with threefold right that the angels hailed his 
advent as the advent of "peace on earth, good-will 
toward men." 

And now, brethren, one or two very brief words in 
conclusion. And first, let us praise God for the in- 
estimable gift which was this day given to men. The 
angels praised Him, whom by comparison it concerned 
so little j let us praise Him whom it concerns so much. 
Let us praise Him that heaven and earth have been so 
knit together ; that in Christ Jesus we have the golden 
clasp which, having once knit them in one, has knit 
them for evermore ; that in this incarnate Son of God 
the Jacob's ladder, let down from heaven to earth, and 
spanning the gulf between them, is no longer a dream, 
but a waking truth and reality j so that if these shining 
stairs seen by the patriarch were the prophecy, the 
coming of the Son of God in our nature is the fulfil- 
ment of that prophecy ; let us praise Him too, that not 
angels only, but men, may by these stairs ascend into 
heaven. 

And secondly, as we see in Christ and in his Incar- 
nation the bond and bann which knits heaven and 
earth in one, so too let us see in Him the true maker, 
upholder, maintainer of all genuine fellowship and 
brotherhood between man and man. He did not 
merely proclaim this fellowship ; it is actually consti- 
tuted in Him. He is every man's Brother ; and all 
men, thus akin to Him, are akin also in Him to each 



THE ANGELS 7 HYMN. 



11 



other. Christ's brethren are our brethren. All phi- 
lanthropy, all love of our fellow-men, which does not 
grow out of this root, which does not nourish itself on 
this faith, is a poor sickly plant at the best, and will 
bring no fruit to perfection. But this faith in Christ, 
that He took the nature of every man, that in Him we 
have, as many as believe on his name, adoption into 
the family of God, this and this alone will be effectual 
to maintain any true fellowship between men. 

And you, my Christian brethren, to whom any por- 
tion of this world's goods are given, while you show 
at all times, above all things show at this present, that 
you believe these things to be true ; that you do in- 
deed count the poor, the naked, the hungry, the house- 
less, your brethren in Christ. Oh, be ashamed to be 
warm while you have done nothing to hinder them 
from being cold ; be ashamed to feed without fear, 
while not so much as a crumb from your table relieves 
their necessities ; be ashamed of the voices of joy and 
gladness within your doors, so long as you have done 
nothing to still the cries of want and woe in that waste 
wilderness of suffering and sorrow, which, however we 
may hide our eyes from it, is day and night around us 
and about us ; and nowhere nearer to us than in that 
great city, itself also a wilderness, wherein we dwell. 



SERMON YIII. 



ST. STEPHEN. 



And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, 
receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud 
voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said 
this, he fell asleep. — Acts vii. 59, 60. 



X to-day we celebrate tlie death of his first witness 
and confessor, St. Stephen. It was Christ's birth, but 
it is Stephen's death ; for with the exception of the 
Baptist, who was wonderfully born, we do not com- 
memorate the birth of any, save only of the King of 
saints. And there is reason in this ; seeing that to be 
born into an evil world is not the blessed thing for 
sinful man ; but to be new born into the kingdom of 
grace, which is blessed ; even as to be fully born into 
the perfected kingdom of glory, which is most blessed 
all. Of one Man only could his birth be regarded as 
a matter of pure and unmingled rejoicing — the Man 
whose generation did not require a regeneration to 
complete it, and was not therefore followed by one. 
But of all other among her saints the church com- 
memorates not the day of their birth, but that of their 
death, which was indeed their passage into life, the 
seal of their final triumph over sin, and the pledge that 
henceforth nothing should by any means hurt them. 




celebrated the birth of Christ ; 



(78) 



ST. STEPHEN. 



79 



And the day of St. Stephen's martyrdom follows 
close (it could not follow closer) on the day of Christ's 
nativity. The fact has its lesson. Of course, as we 
do not pretend to know exactly at what period of the 
year this glorious martyr suffered, it lay open to choose 
any day for the celebration of his faith and patience 
and victorious martyrdom. But this day was not 
chosen at random. A profound Christian feeling dic- 
tated the selection ; and the mere juxtaposition of the 
two is eminently instructive for us. We are thus re- 
minded in whose strength it was that this martyr tri- 
umphed, even in the strength of the incarnate Son of 
God. We are thus taught that it was because Christ 
had lived for Stephen, that therefore Stephen was en- 
abled to die for Christ. The self-denying life of 
Christ, crowned with his holy death, was for those 
who followed at once the pattern and the power — the 
pattern of what they ought to be, the power by which 
they were enabled to be what they ought. We have 
here a commentary, not in word but in life, on the 
declaration of the Apostle, " I can do all things 
through Christ which strengtheneth me." 

But concerning Stephen, foremost in the glorious 
army of martyrs, first of those golden grains beaten 
out by the persecutor's flail to enrich the barn-floor of 
the Lord * it is probable from his name, which is a 
Greek one, that he was not a Jew of Palestine, not, 
that is, a Hebrew Jew ; but one of the Dispersion, who 

* " Primum granum trituratura, Christi, ditans aream." Ancient 
Thpnn. 



80 



ST. STEPHEN. 



had retained the faith, but who had lost, or left off to 
use, the language of his fathers — a Hellenist, or 
' Grecian,' as such are called in our Bible. This, it 
will be well to remember, means something quite dif- 
ferent there from a ' Greek. 7 A ' Greek 7 is a Gentile, 
one of Gentile birth and heathen religion ; but a 
' Grecian 7 is a Jew^ quite as much a Jew, as truly of 
the stock of Abraham, as the Hebrew ; and with only 
the difference that, through long dwelling in foreign 
lands, he, or his fathers before him, had unlearned the 
Hebrew tongue, and spake the Greek language, and 
used the Septuagint translation of the Bible ; being 
for all this quite as much an heir of the promises as 
the other. 

Such a Grecian, it can hardly be doubted, we have 
in St. Stephen. When the Twelve, willing to devote 
themselves exclusively to the spiritual duties of their 
great apostleship, required of the congregation that it 
should designate " seven men full of the Holy Ghost 
and of wisdom, 77 whom they might appoint over the 
secular business of the church, Stephen is the first 
among those named, and with this most honorable 
addition, " a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. 77 
Being thus brought forward into a prominent place in 
the church, he speedily drew upon himself the peculiar 
enmity of the unbelieving Jews ; partly by the great 
wonders and miracles which he did, thus confirming 
and spreading the faith of Jesus of Nazareth • but 
chiefly no doubt by the boldness with which he pro- 
claimed the significance of that new society which 
Christ had founded ; that in it Jew and Gentile stood 



ST. STEPHEN. 



81 



on equal terms ; for the middle wall of partition which 
had separated them hitherto, and set one nearer and 
one farther off from God, had been broken down by 
his death ; that all now were near ; — a doctrine above 
all other unwelcome to Jewish ears. 

This much we are justified in affirming ; for it is 
this which must evidently lie behind the charge which 
his accusers bring against him : " We have heard him 
say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, 
and shall change the customs which Moses delivered." 
The charge was an untrue one ; they are declared 
" false witnesses " who bring it ; but like so many lies, 
like the very similar accusations made against Ste- 
phen's Lord,* it was the perversion and caricature of 
a truth. It did no doubt lie involved in that mighty 
truth which Stephen perhaps was the first to proclaim 
with power, and of which St. Paul was afterwards 
raised up to be the witness, — namely, in the universal 
character of that church which Christ had founded, — 
that sooner or later the temple-worship should cease, 
the. ceremonial law be done away, that no longer in 
that mountain, nor in Gerizim, but that every where 
men should worship God in spirit and in truth ; that 
Christianity, whose true centre was every where, inas- 
much as Christ was every where, could have no local 
centre, as the Jewish religion had. 

But neither Stephen now, nor Paul at a later day, 
spake against the Temple or against the law. These 
were of God ; and, albeit now they had done their 



4* 



* Matt. xxvi. 61. 



82 



ST. STEPHEN. 



work, were to be set aside not rudely nor violently, 
but gently, and with all reverence and honor, and, as 
far as possible, with no outrage done to the feelings of 
any ; the church detaching itself from its Jewish in- 
teguments with as little violence as the full-formed 
fruit from the shell or husk which protected it while 
as yet it was not fully formed. Still the doom of the 
Temple, the doom of the law, did most plainly lie in 
the doctrine which Stephen preached (and this much 
right his accusers had) ; of the Temple, for not in one 
temple made with hands more than in another, but in 
prepared hearts of all faithful worshippers, would the 
Lord's habitation henceforth be ; of the law, for a 
main purpose of that law had been to separate the 
Jew from the Gentile, while that of Christ had been, 
for now the time was come, to unite them. 

No wonder then that Stephen should have stirred 
up the bitterest hatred of all who in the pride and 
narrowness of their hearts desired that the exclusive 
privileges of the Jew should be for ever, of the wicked 
husbandmen who, having killed the Son, hoped that 
the inheritance might be theirs : no wonder that the 
lot of martyrdom should first have fallen on him, the 
newly-elected deacon, rather than on Peter or James 
or John, foremost pillars of the church. The great 
truth of the calling of the Gentiles, and that upon en- 
tirely equal terms with the Jew, he had seized with a 
far firmer grasp even than these chiefest apostles (at 
a later day, you may remember how Peter needed an 
especial vision to reconcile him to it), he proclaimed it 
more boldly than all ; and thus he concentrated on 



ST. STEPHEN. 



83 



himself, as Paul, the inheritor of this mighty truth, at 
a later day concentrated on himself, well-nigh all the 
hostility and all the enmity of the Jewish opponents 
of the Gospel. 

The relation of these two with one another is one 
of profoundest interest ; for Stephen is evidently the 
precursor of Paul ; and when in that fire-chariot of 
pain the first martyr was taken up to heaven, it was 
on Paul that indeed his mantle fell. And yet it little 
seemed so at the time. In all probability they had ac- 
tually disputed with one another concerning the faith 
of Christ. Stephen, we know, had disputed with them 
at Jerusalem of the synagogue of Cilicia ; * and who 
so likely as Saul of Tarsus to have been the chief dis- 
puter among these ? and when the matter came to a 
sterner arbitrament than that of words, it was at a 
young man's feet whose name was Saul that the wit- 
nesses, who were bound to cast the first stone at him 
who died by their witness, laid down their clothes ; 
he, as it were, not being content to have one hand in 
Stephen's death but many, helping many to slay, even 
all whose clothes he kept. 

And yet here was indeed the turning-point of St. 
Paul's life. We dare not indeed say, as some have 
said, that all his earlier convictions, all his fierce zeal 
for the Jewish religion, and hatred of the Christian 
name, were shaken by what he saw of Stephen's pa- 
tience, courage, meekness, love, by the sight of his face 
shining like an angel's, so that inwardly he was half a 

* Acts vi. 9. 



84 



ST. STEPHEN. 



convert even before the Lord met him on the way to 
Damascus. We dare not say this. There is no sign, 
no indication of any thing of the kind in Scripture. 
So far from this, he was holding on in all his heat of 
pride, in all his fanatic hatred against the name of 
Jesus, unabated to the last, even to the very instant of 
his conversion. And yet for all this, we may say that 
here was the turning-point of all j for it has ever been 
the faith of the church that to Stephen's prayer we 
owe Paul's conversion. 

And if this was so, (which who would willingly 
deny ?) how does it explain much that else is strange 
and perplexing in the protomartyr's story. Here we 
behold a man full of wisdom, of the Holy Ghost, and 
of power ; whose adversaries were not able to resist 
the wisdom by which he spake ; equipped as few were, 
in some respects it might be, equipped as no other was, 
for a great work in the kingdom of God ; and yet 
scarcely has his career commenced when it is brought 
to a close. This burning and shining light is hardly 
kindled before it is quenched in darkness again. And 
yet not so ; only to the eye of sense does it so appear ; 
from that candle another has been lighted, which shall 
burn long, and give light to all that are in the house. 
One has fallen at the first onset and in the foremost 
ranks of the battle ; but another, kindled by his ex- 
ample, has stepped into his room. And how many 
other lives may perhaps find their explanation here. 
How often the life of some good man, of some man sig- 
nally furnished for the serving of God in his church, 
seems brought prematurely to a close. Shut up while 



ST. STEPHEN. 



85 



lie lived within some narrow sphere, and not occupying 
even that for long, he may yet have left some inheritor 
of his grace behind him, — the fruit of his prayers, of 
his labors, of his holy example, — as great, or it may 
be much greater, than himself. Can he be then 
esteemed to have lived in vain ? does he not live on 
in this his spiritual heir ? 

But these considerations of the great Apostle of the 
Gentiles, as at once this spiritual heir to Stephen, and 
successor to his unfinished life-task, must not lead us 
altogether away from the latter. I must ask you be- 
fore we conclude, to consider three or four principal 
Christian graces which shine out in him ; and may we, 
at however remote a distance, be followers of him, as 
he was of Christ. 

Note then, first, his wisdom. He was a man, we 
know, full of wisdom. Put on his defence, he does 
not rudely affront the prejudices of his Jewish hearers ; 
for indeed they are " brethren and fathers." Where 
he has common ground with them, he takes it. We 
have here an explanation of that which has perplexed 
many, namely, the long and particular recapitulation 
which he makes of the early history of the elect people. 
He may have higher objects too, but with those higher 
he has this — to show how that history is as dear to 
him as to them ; that he is no enemy of the law, or of 
Moses, or of the Temple, however he may now believe 
that in Jesus of Nazareth better things are theirs, or 
may be theirs, than their fathers ever knew. 

But with all his wisdom, admire also his courage. 
There is no shrinking upon his part from the utterance 



86 



ST. STEPHEN. 



of unwelcome truths ; no flattering of the fatal preju- 
dices of his Jewish audience. Where need is, and 
when the right time has arrived, he addresses to them 
the most cutting rebukes. The ingratitude, the revolt, 
the rebellion of the people in the wilderness was but a 
type and pattern and prelude of theirs : " Ye stiff-neck- 
ed and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always 
resist the Holy Ghost : as your fathers did, so do ye." 

But next, admire his love. He speaks so sharply, 
one may say so fiercely, that it would lie very near to 
think that there was no love in his heart. And yet 
what were a martyr without love ? " Though I give 
my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profit- 
eth me nothing." Not so, however. His rage is but 
the rage of the dove, in which there is no gall, no bit- 
terness. The wounds which he inflicts are the faithful 
wounds of a friend, if only they had been accepted as 
such. And this he plainly shows when, amid that 
shower of cruel stones, he answers evil with good, 
cursings with blessings, despiteful usage with prayers ; 
in all this following hard on the footsteps of his bless- 
ed Lord, and in that more excellent way which He 
had shown. When Zacharias, son of Barachias, a mar- 
tyr of the elder covenant, was slain between the Temple 
and altar, he, in harmony with that covenant of right- 
eousness wherein he served, exclaimed with his dying 
breath, " The Lord look upon it, and require it." * 
But as the blood of Christ speaketh better things than 
the blood of Abel, cries from the earth for pardon and 

* 2 Chron. xxiv. 22. 



ST. STEPHEN. 



87 



not for vengeance, so better than the prayer of Zach- 
arias is the prayer of Stephen : " Lord, lay not this sin 
to their charge." 

But lastly, my brethren, observe, and at whatever 
distance imitate, this blessed martyr's faith. How was 
it, it may be asked, that he endured ? He endured as 
seeing Him that is invisible. Others might not see, 
but he saw heaven opened, and saw the glory of God, 
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. 
Observe, I beseech you, that ' standing.' Often as we 
read of Christ sitting at the right hand of God, this is 
the only occasion upon which He is spoken of in 
Scripture as standing there. And why standing ? As 
in act to help, as rising from his throne to succor and 
to save, to uphold his servant in this the hour of his 
extremest need. Such was the latest sight which his 
closing eyes beheld on earth. No wonder that those 
who looked on him should have seen his face as it had 
been the face of an angel. And then, after a sharp 
short agony, his eyes opened once more, and he beheld 
that same Lord, not now far off but near ; and he was 
ever with Him. Earth and earth's toil, and the gnash- 
ing teeth and the fierce faces of foes, and whatever of 
mortal pain this flesh can suffer, had for him for ever 
passed away. His was the crown which his name 
' Stephen ' had prophesied for him from the beginning, 
and his the rest of Paradise, and the beatific vision, 
and the exceeding weight of glory. May God give us 
grace in our humbler sphere, according to our smaller 
strength, that we too may be faithful unto death, and 
may so receive a crown of life ! 



SERMON IX. 



THE CALL OUT OF EGYPT. 

Out of Egypt have I called my Son. — Matt. ii. 15. 

THESE words are quoted by St. Matthew as having 
found their fulfilment when the infant Saviour, at 
the bidding of the angel of the Lord, was carried into 
Egypt, and having there abode till the tyranny of 
Herod's wrath was overpast, did again, at the same 
bidding, return with Joseph and his mother out of 
Egypt, and dwell once more in the land of his nativity. 
At first we are somewhat startled and surprised at the 
use to which the Evangelist puts these words of the 
prophet. We turn to Hosea ii. 1, and it is evident 
that in their primary intention they do not refer to the 
child Jesus, but to the children of Israel collectively 
regarded as God's dear Son ; and the calling out of 
Egypt is their deliverance by the mighty power of God 
from their house of bondage there, and from the yoke 
of their Egyptian taskmasters. 

Shall we say then that St. Matthew only accommo- 
dates these words ; that although they have no a real 
or direct reference to the later event which he is re- 
cording, he notwithstanding adapts them to it ; and 
that this is all ? I think we must every one acknowl- 
edge that such would not be a reverential dealing with 
(83) 



THE CALL OUT OF EGYPT. 



89 



the Word of God ; that, when St. Matthew speaks of 
the infant Christ's return out of Egypt as the fulfilment 
of a prophecy, we ought not so to interpret his words 
as to find in them only the adaptation or accommoda- 
tion of a prophecy, and of one spoken originally in 
quite another sense, and having properly no allusion 
to Him at all. 

What then ? how shall we understand the declaration 
of the Evangelist, that in this event a scripture was 
fulfilled, which we know had direct and immediate 
reference to an event which had happened two thou- 
sand years before ? In this way. Words of Scripture 
being words of God, and being therefore deep words, 
central words, words which take their stand at the 
heart of things, look many ways, have many aspects, 
may have one fulfilment, and then another, a com- 
mencing fulfilment, and then another, and another, and 
at last a crowning fulfilment. It is not easy to ex- 
haust them ; so to draw out all their meaning, that no 
more remains behind to be drawn out from them still. 
No doubt the words of Hosea — the exact words, as I 
will remind you, are these, " When Israel was a child, 
then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt " — 
did look back to the calling of the children of Israel 
out of Egypt ; but they were so overruled by the Holy 
Ghost, that while they thus looked back to one signal 
mercy of God to his church, they looked on to a far 
greater mercy ; but one of exactly the same kind, with 
an inner as well as an outer resemblance • which there- 
fore could be fitly included under the same words. 

For why were the children of Israel called out of 



90 



THE CALL OUT OF EGYPT. 



Egypt ? For this reason, that they might be bearers 
of God's word, witnesses of God's truth, to the nations, 
that they might declare His name to the world, that 
they might be a light to lighten the Gentiles. I do 
not stop to inquire how far they were true to this their 
high calling ; but it was for this that God called them 
out of Egypt, acknowledged them his people, gave 
them his law, drove out their enemies before them, and 
caused them to ride upon the high places of the earth. 
And why was Christ preserved from Herod's sword 
and all the perils of his infancy, sheltered for a while 
in Egypt, and then in due time called out of Egypt, 
and brought back again to the Holy Land? Why, 
but for this same reason — that, growing in grace and 
favor with God and man, He might indeed be that 
which the natural Israel ought to have been, and was 
not, the Light of the World, the true and faithful Wit- 
ness, who should declare the name and worship of the 
true God to the ends of the earth. 

For indeed in Christ were gathered up and fulfilled 
all the purposes of God, all the intentions with which 
the Jewish people was constituted from the beginning. 
We might not unfitly compare that people to the aloe- 
plant, which is said, and I believe rightly, only to 
flower once during its lifetime, and that after a long 
lapse of years ; and having put forth its single flower 
once for all, that indeed a flower of exquisite beauty 
and richness, then, as having lived but for this, to 
droop and wither and die. Christ, the fairer than the 
children of men, the One among ten thousand, the 
Virgin-born, was in some sort the one glorious and 



THE CALL OUT OF EGYPT. 



91 



perfect Flower which the rough and hard aloe-stem of 
the Jewish church and nation, barren so long, at length 
bore ; and having borne this, having fulfilled the pur- 
pose of its existence in that wondrous birth, it also 
drooped and died. Thus, as gathering up and con- 
centrating all the life, strength, and beauty of that 
stalk and stem in Himself, as the consummation of all 
that went before, Christ tvas Israel ; He is often so 
called in the Prophets. He, a Jew, at once embodied 
and represented the Jewish nation before his Heavenly 
Father in their noblest aspect, in their highest fulfil- 
ment of that great mission which was theirs, namely, 
to declare the name of God to the world ; and every 
gracious dealing of God with his people had reference 
and respect to that one crowning act for which the 
nation existed, namely, that a Child might be born 
out of the bosom of the people, a Son of Abraham, a 
Son of David, in whom all the nations of the world 
should be blest. With good right, therefore, could 
St. Matthew claim all the promises which were made 
to Israel, as having been made to Him who by best 
right was Israel, all past deliverance of the people as 
typical and prophetical of that mightier deliverance 
with which God would deliver his elect, in whom his 
soul delighted, from every danger and from every fear, 
saying to Him, "Thou art my servant, Israel, by 
whom I will be glorified.' 7 

The words, therefore, spoken by the prophet Hosea 
are not accommodated to Christ, but were most truly 
fulfilled in Him. They had thus a double fulfilment, 
the second more glorious than the first. Nor should 



92 



THE CALL OUT OF EGYPT. 



we err if we ascribed to them one fulfilment more. 
That which was on these two occasions literally ful- 
filled, " Out of Egypt have I called my Son/' is ever 
more finding its spiritual fulfilment in the church of 
the redeemed. It collectively is God's Son, even as 
one by one the true members who compose it are his 
sons ; and they too have been called out of Egypt, and 
are living members of his church, in so far as they have 
not been disobedient to that heavenly calling ; and it 
is to this, the third fulfilment of this memorable proph- 
ecy, that I would ask your attention for the time which 
remains, and to some of the practical considerations 
which may thus be naturally suggested to us. 

Egypt, as I need hardly remind you, is always 
represented to us in Scripture as a land of darkness, 
a land of superstition, of low grovelling idolatry, of 
slavery and oppression at once for the bodies and the 
spirits of men. Nowhere had idolatry assumed so de- 
grading a form. In other heathen lands men wor- 
shipped the sun and the moon, and the shining host 
of heaven, or gods made in the likeness of men ; but in 
Egypt they had sunk to the worship of birds and four- 
footed beasts and creeping things. If thick darkness 
rested over the whole of heathendom, yet the thickest 
darkness of all was over Egypt. Then, too, Egypt was 
the land where the children of Israel had served their 
hard service, their cruel bondage, under tyrannous 
taskmasters and unrighteous lords. What wonder 
then that Egypt in Scripture should be the standing 
type and symbol of the world, as it lieth in the Evil 
One, as it is full of darkness and ignorance of God, 



THE CALL OUT OP EGYPT. 



93 



alienated from the life of God, as it lays its heavy 
bondage on the hearts and spirits of men, draws them 
away from the worship of their Father in heaven to 
the worship of the meanest objects of sense ? What 
wonder, then, that when God calls us with a holy call- 
ing, from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, 
from the worship of idols, of the idols of sense, of the 
things beneath us, to the worship of Himself, it should 
be styled a calling out of Egypt ? 

Such indeed it is. It is a coming out of Egypt ; and 
it is a coming out in obedience to a heavenly calling. 
The children of Israel might have groaned under 
their tasks, they might have cursed the imposers of 
those tasks ; but they would never have thought of 
freedom, of deliverance, unless God had put that 
thought into their hearts. It was his voice, his calling, 
wakening in them higher hopes, nobler desires, which 
changed them from a servile band of cowering slaves 
into an army of freemen ; which strengthened them to 
go forth from the land of their bondage — not fearing 
the wrath of the king, but seeing Him that was invis- 
ible, and nothing doubting but that He would lead 
them through the waves of the Red sea, through all 
the perils of the wilderness, even to the promised land 
of their inheritance at the last. And our Egypt, be- 
lieve me, we should never leave it, if God, even the 
God of the spirits of all flesh, did not quicken our spir- 
its, did not summon us to a nobler life — to something 
better than a slavish bondage to our fleshly appetites 
and grovelling desires. And God calls us as Ms 
sons : " Out of Egypt have I called my sons" In one 



94 



THE CALL OUT OF EGYPT. 



sense all men are Ms sons. " We are his offspring/ 7 as 
is declared in words to which the apostle Paul has set 
his seal. But this original sonship has been lost ; if 
not effaced, it has been suspended, through sin, and we 
need a new adoption into the family of God, which we 
have in Christ Jesus our Lord ; for as many as believe 
on Him, to them gives He power to become the sons 
of God. 

If, my Christian brethren, it is thus with us, if we 
have been called out of Egypt by the voice of God, to 
be his children, what are some of the duties which flow 
out from our high vocation as in this light regarded ? 

And, first, this surely is one — to leave Egypt alto- 
gether behind us, to have no going back to it even in 
thought, much less drawing back to it in deed. You 
remember how it fared with the children of Israel, the 
temptations which assailed them; how they called to 
mind the fleshpots of Egypt, said it was well with them 
when they were sitting beside these ; would fain have 
chosen some new leader who might bring them back 
to these coarse delights, — even though he brought them 
back to their house of bondage too ; and because Moses 
was hidden in the mount of glory with God, " as for this 
Moses/ 7 they said, "we wot not what is become of 
him. 77 And though they did not actually go back, one 
cause or another preventing, yet when they committed 
the sins of Egypt in the midst of the church of God, — 
when they set up the golden calf, when they committed 
fornication with the daughters of Moab, — they had in 
spirit returned thither, and were dealt with by God as 
guilty of this extreme revolt from Him. 



THE CALL OUT OF EGYPT. 



95 



Is there not something only too like this in the spir- 
itual history of men ? By the grace of God it is only 
a temptation, and a temptation which is overcome, in 
many • while others, alas ! succumb to the temptation, 
and are again entangled in that yoke of bondage, re- 
turn to that darkness and slavery, from which they had 
been once delivered. But the temptation is common 
to all — to cast after a while a longing, lingering look 
on that which has been forgone and renounced, yea, 
even to loathe, as light food, the heavenly manna, the 
bread that cometh down from heaven, and to yearn 
for some coarser fare, some of the sinful dainties of 
the world, in its stead ; to lose trust in the Heav- 
enly Guide ; and, because He is unseen, because He is 
withdrawn for a little from our sight, because He is in 
the Mount of God, beholding the glory of his Father's 
countenance, to say of Him, " We wot not what is be- 
come of Him.' 7 Let us watch against this temptation. 
Our course is onward ; our salvation is before us and 
not behind, above us and not beneath ; behind and be- 
neath are slavery and darkness, despair and death ; 
before us and above us is the light of life, with Him who 
is Himself that Light for our guardian and our guide. 

But again, let us remember that if we have been 
called out of Egypt, it is not that we may enter the 
promised land at once '; that there is a time and space 
between, in which our God will prove us, and humble 
us, and show us what is in our hearts ; and that this, 
being a proving time, is also a sifting time, a separating 
of the true members of the church from the false. There 
were many who came out of Egypt, who never entered 



96 



THE CALL OUT OF EGYPT. 



into Canaan. Their carcasses fell in the wilderness. 
And why ? For many reasons ; and among other rea- 
sons for this— they murmured at the greatness of the 
way, and the difficulties of it. They had not laid their 
account for this ; and thus they became murmurers and 
complainers ; unthankful for past mercies, distrustful 
of future ; at every little check or annoyance fretting 
against God ; or it might be, worse than this, in an 
evil heart of unbelief counting that the wonders of 
God's power and of his love were exhausted, and that 
He had brought them out into that wilderness only 
that they might perish, or even that He might slay 
them, there. And these things — the records, that is, 
of their impatience, ingratitude, unbelief, rebellion — 
were written, as the apostle expressly tells us, for our 
admonition. Truly such admonition drawn from such 
ensamples is not superfluous. How easily, not to speak 
of yet graver sins, we give way to the same evil spirit 
of fretfulness or impatience! If one little thing is 
withheld, we forget a thousand great things which are 
freely given. It is nothing to us that God has called 
us out of Egypt, has given to us the adoption of sons, 
that He is leading us to a good land and a large, the 
glory of all lands, even the land of everlasting life. 
If any little thing goes wrong on our journey thither, — 
if the water of the wells at one .of our halting-places is 
but a little brackish, if earthly comforts at all fail, if 
we cannot have the quails for our lust as well as the 
bread for our need, — how prone we are to discontent 
and to displeasure, to act over again the sin of Jonah, 
who, because his paltry gourd had perished, wished 



THE CALL OUT OP EGYPT. 



in himself to die, and said, " It is better for me to die 
than to live ; " yes, and like him to defend this impa- 
tience, and to affirm even in the face of God, that we 
do well and not ill in being thus angry for the wither- 
ing of our gourd. Fretfulness, irritation of spirit, dis- 
content at God's dealings with us, not, it may be, mani- 
fested without, but nourished and entertained within, 
is a sin against which it behoves us, partakers of a 
heavenly calling, travellers to a heavenly country, to 
be very much on our guard. It is deeply charged 
with unthankfulness and ingratitude ; and needs to be 
watched against the more, because it may be thus 
nourished within, and seen there of God, while it is 
concealed from every human eye. 

Not in this, but in quite another spirit God meant 
that we should walk when He called, and calling 
brought us out of the spiritual Egypt. It. was that 
we, as the literal Israel of old, might show forth the 
praises of Him that hath brought us out of darkness 
into his marvellous light, that we might be his wit- 
nesses, doing all things without murmurings and dis- 
putings, the sons of God without rebuke, blameless 
and harmless, shining as lights in the world, and hold- 
ing forth to others that word of life which we had re- 
ceived into our own hearts. 



5 



SERMON X. 



THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOVE. 
To what purpose is this waste ? — Matt. xxvi. 8. 

IT is indeed very worthy of notice that, whatever 
God's servants may do, the world is ever ready, 
ever on the watch, to pick a quarrel with it. There 
is always something wrong in it, some side or other on 
which a fault will be found, an offence taken. Elijah 
is a troubler of Israel ; Ezekiel a speaker in dark and 
obscure parables ; Jeremiah causes the heart of the 
people to fail ; Moses lets the people from their bur- 
dens ; Paul and Silas turn the world upside down ; 
David behaves himself unseemly, and makes himself 
vile when he dances in holy exultation before the 
Ark ; the austere Baptist, withdrawing from the world, 
" hath a devil ; " the gracious Saviour, mingling with 
the world, is "a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a 
friend of publicans and sinners." And thus is it ever. 
The world can always find something wrong in that 
which God's servants do ; or if it be manifestly lifted 

* Preached on the first Sunday after the Consecration of All Saints', 
Marylebone, May 29, 1859. I have not thought it needful for the sake 
of this single Sermon, not preached in the Abbey, to alter the title of 
this volume. 

(98) 



THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOVE. 99 

above all reproach, then, if not in the matter, yet in 
the manner ; in the degree of the thing, if not in the 
thing itself. The good work which that holy woman 
wrought on the person of the Lord did not escape this 
universal law of reproach. It was too lavishly, too 
prodigally done. " To what purposeas this waste ? " 

You remember, doubtless, my brethren, who it was 
that spoke these words, and on what occasion He spoke 
them. The Lord Jesus, some very few days before his 
Passion, was sitting in the house of Simon, — of " Simon 
the leper," as he is still called, for the recent healing 
which he had received at the Lord's hands had not 
abolished his old name. Another and still more emi- 
nent trophy of Christ's power and grace was sitting at 
the same table, — Lazarus, whom He had recalled from 
the grave : the Lord, it may be, was sitting between 
these two. But while He thus sat at meat, there came 
a woman, — St. Matthew does not name her by name, 
but from St. John we learn that it was no other than 
Mary, the sister of Lazarus, — one, therefore, who owed, 
and felt that she owed, everything to Jesus. She owed 
Him herself, for, sitting at his feet she had heard words 
of eternal life ; she owed Him her brother, rescued 
from the jaws of death which had already closed upon 
him, and given back to her love. This Mary, owing, 
and feeling that she owed, everything to the Lord, 
came, not indeed " behind Him weeping," as that other 
poor contrite sinner had done ; * but with holy bold- 
ness, with the lavish prodigalities of grateful affection, 



* Luke vii. 38. 



100 



THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOVE. 



taking no account of the more or the less, but counting 
that the most was all too slight an utterance of her 
thankful heart, and " having an alabaster box of very 
precious ointment, poured it on his head ; " nor yet 
content with this, anointed also the feet of Jesus with 
the ointment, till the whole house where the guests 
were assembled was filled with the odor of the oint- 
ment ; and the word of the Bride in the Canticles was 
fulfilled, "While the King sitteth at his table, my 
spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof." 

And yet this savor, sweet as it was, was not a sweet 
savor to all ; there was one indeed to whom, so far 
from being a sweet savor, a savor of life unto life, it 
was a savor rather of death unto death. In St. Mat- 
thew and St. Mark we are told generally, that some, 
and these some even disciples, when they saw it, had 
indignation within themselves, and said, " Why was 
this waste of the ointment made ? " A perplexing 
statement enough, that any who were disciples should 
grudge the honor due to their Master, or count any 
honor too great for Him ; a most perplexing state- 
ment, if it were not completed by the statement of St. 
John, from which we learn that this was not the 
thought of their own hearts, had not its birth there, 
but only that they were drawn away too easily by the 
fair speeches, that they fell in too easily with the plau- 
sible indignation, of the traitor : who indeed grudged 
this or any other honor to Him ; and who led them in 
their guilelessness and simplicity to share for a passing 
moment in his own murmurings and discontent. 

The words themselves, and the rebuke which they 



THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOYE. 



101 



call out, " Why trouble ye the woman ? for she hath 
wrought a good work upon rne/ ? reach very far ; they 
find their application again and again. For indeed 
this is the wonderful character of Scripture, above all 
of the incidents in the life of our Lord, that every 
thing there, however unpretending in its outward 
form, yet touches the central heart of things, and there- 
fore is never old, never out of date ■ having found a 
thousand fulfilments in time past, is prepared to find 
in the future a thousand more. 

" To what purpose is this waste ? " How do these 
words emerge again and again from the deep of men's 
hearts, find utterance more or less distinct from their 
lips ! Sometimes they are words of disciples, and 
spoken by them in simplicity and good faith, with no 
malice in those who uttered them, whatever malice 
there may have been in those who first suggested them 
to their minds. Sometimes they spring out of a far 
bitterer root, as in the case of that unhappy one who 
played the foremost part among the murmurers here, 
himself a false disciple, and a foe in the disguise of a 
friend. Sometimes, I say, they are thus the voice and 
utterance of the world, as it is, however it may not 
avow itself as such, the foe of God, the foe of Christ • 
and which, being this, can ill endure that He should 
be made much of, that He should be honored, that to 
Him should be rendered the unstinted devotedness of 
hearts and hands, and of whatever these hearts and 
hands can bring and dedicate to his service. 

How much time, for example, the Christian man 
must seem to the votary of this world to be throwing 



102 THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOVE. 

away in meditation and prayer ! What do these peo- 
ple mean, it says, or, if it does not say, it thinks, "by 
being always at church, so often at sacraments, setting 
apart such portions of the day for secret devotions, for 
study and meditation in the Scripture ? What comes 
of it ? What return does it bring ? Why cannot they 
be content with a few minutes of prayer in the morn- 
ing, and a few minutes of prayer at night, and an oc- 
casional chapter in the Bible, and church upon Sunday, 
once, or if they choose it, twice, as others were before 
them ? " To what purpose is this waste ? " 

Once more, the world grudges and resents any signal 
outbursts of feeling and passion, any manifest warmth 
or heat of the affections, in any of the services offered 
to God. For if God is a jealous God, and will not 
give his glory to another, it is quite as true that the 
world is a jealous world, and can ill endure to see any 
eagerly and passionately served but itself. That there 
should be, what one of the old Fathers has called 
" martyrs of the devil," who run to hell with the same 
eagerness wherewith some of God ? s saints have run to 
heaven, who serve the world with their whole heart 
and mind and soul and strength, this seems quite ac- 
cording to rule with it ; but that any should be mar- 
tyrs of God, their life seems folly, and their end mad- 
ness. And all lower degrees of the same passion 
which has led some to snatch and seize the martyr's 
crown, are, in their degree, offensive to it no less. It 
cannot understand that fine madness which from time 
to time possesses those whom the Spirit of God has 
laid hold of with power. To be drunk with wine, it 



THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOVE. 



103 



can understand and pardon ; but not to be " filled 
with the Spirit." David dancing before the Ark is as 
one of the shameless fellows in the eyes of a cold and 
mocking Michal. The height, the strength, the ex- 
orbitancy of the love with which some have loved 
Christ their Lord, this is a rank offence in the eyes of 
them, the Simons, who, loving Him little, in fact love 
Him not all. Cold formal homage and lip-service 
they can bear with ; but that any should praise Him 
out of the great deep, should testify of Him that He 
giveth songs in the night, should glorify Him in the 
midst of the fires, this they cannot endure. " What is 
thy Beloved more than another beloved ? " Why ren- 
der to Him, as invisible Lord, the author of a remote 
invisible good, if indeed He be the author of any, that 
love, those affections, which might find their fitter ob- 
ject in some nearer and more satisfying good ? " To 
what purpose is this waste ? " 

And not otherwise is it when this inner devotion of 
heart finds utterance in some costly offering of the 
hands ; when any thing that at all transcends the 
common rate is rendered back to Him from whom all 
things proceed, and to whom all things belong. The 
world will allow and praise any prodigality which is 
bestowed upon itself ; but when it is for God and for 
Christ, when the costly cedar is overlaid with the pure 
gold in the temple of the Lord, when the alabaster box 
of precious ointment is broken above the head of 
Christ, and no drop reserved, but all poured out, and 
not on his head only, but on his feet, even then, while 
the whole house of the church is filled with the odor 



104 



THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOVE. 



of the ointment, there will not be wanting some to ex* 
claim, " To what purpose is this waste ? " 

But see, my dear brethren, on the first occasion when 
these words, so often since repeated, were uttered, how 
the Lord silences the murmurers, allows and accepts 
the gift, and takes her that brought it under his shelter, 
and throws over her, dashed and abashed as no doubt 
for a moment she was to find her good thus evil spoken 
of, the shield of his protecting love. " Why trouble 
ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work 
upon me." And these words also reach very far. I 
see in them, setting as they did the seal of Christ's ap- 
proval on that costly service just done to Him, dis- 
allowing as they did the plea that the money expended 
upon it might have been more usefully expended in 
some other way, the allowance, the authority, the jus- 
tification for very much which has since found place in 
his church. No cold utilitarianism is to reign there, 
no niggard calculation of the cheapest rate at which 
He may be served. The best which any man can bring- 
to Him is not too good, the richest and the rarest is 
not too rich and rare, for Him. All things are to 
serve Him. The kings of the earth should bring their 
glory and honor into his temple ; and not merely the 
kings who sit on visible thrones ; but they who reign 
as kings in the spirits of men, the mighty in science, 
the mighty in art, the mighty in song, they are then 
doing their best, they are then fulfilling most truly the 
ends for which these transcendant gifts were imparted 
to them, when they consecrate all without reserve to 
Him, when they count all their science, their art, their 



THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOVE. 



105 



song, only then to have reached their highest consum- 
mation and end, while they wait as ministering hand- 
maids upon Him, setting forward the beauty of his 
service, the spread of his truth, the glory of his name. 

Thus, if any should ask concerning this beautiful house 
in which we are worshipping to-night, " To what pur- 
pose is this waste ? " we answer, in the words of Christ, 
that it is a good work which has here been wrought 
for Him ; nor shall we be led astray even though some 
should remind us how ten or twenty churches for the 
poor might have been erected for the cost of this one. 
I honor those who, serving in the spirit and not in the 
letter, have, in some great famine or distress, sold the 
very sacramental vessels themselves, that with the 
price they might feed the poor or redeem the captive ; 
but let us honor her also, for Christ honored her, and 
declared that her praise should be in all the churches, 
she too serving in the spirit, and not in the letter, who 
broke the alabaster box of ointment, very precious, 
over the Saviour's head, which " might have been sold 
for much, and given to the poor ; * let us honor her, 
and all who have since trodden in her steps. Short- 
sighted indeed, even from their own point of view,' I 
believe the alternative course suggested by the objectors 
would prove. " Deep calleth unto deep." One signal 
act of self-sacrifice calls out many more ; and if ever 
there are to be churches for all the poor in the land, 
such good works as this which we here behold do not 
stand in the way of such a consummation, but are 
rather the very deeds which are likeliest to provoke it. 

We put back, therefore, the charge, " To what pur- 



106 THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOVE. 



pose is this waste?" We feel that it touches not us, 
who rejoice in this goodly house ; that it touches as 
little them whose munificence designed and accom- 
plished it. Nay, we retort these words on the world, 
and on the world's votaries. "To what purpose is 
this waste ? " this your lavish expenditure of thought, 
of labor, of time, of affections, of all precious things, 
upon unworthy objects, this wearying of yourselves 
for very vanity, this toiling for that which satisfieth 
not, this laboring only for the meat which perisheth ; 
this hugging to your bosom of a world which pierceth 
you through with manj r sorrows ; while you mean- 
while, like that desperate king of Israel, make altars 
to the gods that smote you, and, though wounded in the 
house of your friends, wounded a thousand times in 
the house of your false friends, yet trust and believe in 
them still ? May we not ask you, children and votaries 
of this world, who are working all for time, nothing 
for eternity, who are working all for the flesh, nothing 
for the Spirit, whose sowing can be followed by no 
reaping, whose scattering can be crowned by no gath- 
ering, who are making so much of the inn where you 
lodged for a single night, furnishing and adorning it, 
while you leave meanwhile empty and unfurnished 
and desolate the house where you must continue for 
ever, — may we not turn the tables, and ask of you, " To 
what purpose is this waste " of the priceless treasure 
of a heart which was made for God, but is wasted on 
the world ; of a life which might have been laid out 
for the highest, but is squandered on the meanest, ob- 
jects and aims ? 



THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOVE. 



107 



But you, brethren beloved of the Lord, who will 
worship from day to day, and from year to year, in 
the courts of this house, you will give all diligence 
that, great as is the outward glory which it wears, it 
may have another and a higher glory still. " The 
king's daughter is all glorious tvithin" Her apparel 
may be of wrought gold ; but this is nothing. Faith 
and hope and love, it is these which make her glorious 
indeed. Truth and beauty, it is well when these two 
are wedded, as they are wedded here — truth in doc- 
trine and discipline, beauty in form and outward ser- 
vice ; but if ever these should be divorced, as divorced 
by evil accident in some ages of the church they have 
been, let us pray God that we may have grace to 
cleave to the truth, and to let the beauty go. For 
better the sternest, the ruggedest, the most unattractive 
presentation of the faith, which has yet fast hold of the 
central truth, than the fairest and the loveliest, which 
has allowed any vital portion of this to escape. 

So too with these houses of God. Christ in the 
midst of his church, his presence and his power, these 
have turned many a rude upper chamber, or darksome 
crypt, or narrow catacomb, into the very gate of 
heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon 
the Son of Man ; while his absence, the putting of any 
other before Him, or instead of Him, or beside Him, 
this would empty even such a house as this of its glory 
altogether, would leave it a husk without a kernel, the 
mausoleum of a dead faith instead of the temple of a 
living. Oh, then, let us pray earnestly that not now 
only, but so long as this house endures, long after we 



108 



THE PRODIGALITIES OF LOVE. 



have passed away, Christ may be here preached, in the 
freeness of his grace, in the power of his sacraments, 
in the fullness of his redeeming love, in all his readiness 
to heal, in all his mightiness to save. Let us pray that 
careless hearts may be here aroused, and weary may 
find rest, and wounded may find healing ; that Christ 
on his cross, Christ set forth evidently crucified among 
you, may draw many to Him, many, as the doves to 
their windows, to find their refuge and their shelter in 
his wounded side, even in the clefts of that Rock that 
was cleft and smitten for them. So, when the Lord 
writeth up the number of his people, it shall be said 
of this man and of that, yea, of no mean number added 
to the multitude of the white-robed and palm-bearing 
who stand before the throne, that they were born here, 
that this was as the Beautiful gate to the heavenly 
Temple ; in which, by the name of the Lord Jesus, and 
through faith in his name, they were healed ; * and by 
which they entered that Temple not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens, of which all the fairest and 
brightest which we here behold is but the faintest type 
and the dimmest shadow. We wish you good luck in 
the name of the Lord. 



* Acts iii. 6.- 



SERMON XI. 



THE WATCH AGAINST SINS OF THE TONGUE. 

I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with ray tongue. 

— Psalm xxxix. 1. 

HOW many, my brethren, have said this, and yet 
have failed to do it ; and unless they have said 
something more than this, they have assuredly failed ; 
unless, that is, they have added to this good resolution 
of their own, earnest prayer to G-od that He would as- 
sist them in keeping their good resolution ; unless they 
have also said with the Psalmist, " Set a watch, Lord, 
at the door of my lips." If they have neglected to ask 
for God's watch, for Him by his grace to stand sentinel 
there, their own purposes of not offending with the 
tongue, however honest, however sincere at the mo- 
ment, will have been continually baffled and defeated. 
We have the sure word of Scripture for this which we 
assert. "The tongue," it is said there, "can no m m 
tame ; " no man can tame it, but only the grace of God. 
It is the best member which we have ; but, as the cor- 
ruption of the best proves ever the worst, it, being the 
best, may, and if misemployed will, prove the worst 
member which we have. For, indeed, is it not so? 
With it, as St. James reminds us, we may bless God, 
and with it we may curse men made in the similitude 

(109) 



110 



THE WATCH AGAINST 



of God. With it we may pour oil and wine of conso- 
lation into the bleeding wounds of our brethren, or 
with it we may rub in biting salt to exasperate those 
wounds the more. With it we may defend the truth ; 
with it we may make specious and plausible a lie. 
With it we may provoke one another to love and good 
works j with it we may provoke one another to envy, 
strife, and debate. There is no instrument so potent 
for good and for evil. " Life and death," as the wise 
king said, " are in the power of the tongue." It may 
be a tree of life, or a root of bitterness and death • and 
this or that at once to ourselves and others. 

But if these things are so, what reason is there that 
we should fall in with that holy purpose of David, and 
say with him, " I will take heed to my ways, that I 
offend not with my tongue." What reason, if we mean 
to keep this purpose, that we should further pray with 
him, " Set a watch, Lord, at the door of my lips." 
Nor shall I, I am sure, occupy your time in vain, if I 
can suggest to you a few considerations which should 
the more earnestly move you to all this. 

And this first, — how important it is that we should 
seek to order our speech aright, seeing that our words 
are the outcoming of our inmost heart, the revelation 
of the deepest, most hidden things which are there. 
Christ Himself has declared as much : " Out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." It is, 
indeed, quite true that a man may speak other things 
than those which are in his heart, for a little while, 
and so long as he is on the watch. But no one can be 
always on the watch. Every man lays aside his masks 



SIXS OF THE TOXGUE. 



Ill 



and disguises sometimes ; or if not, jet sudden temp- 
tations, unlooked-for provocations, or any of the thou- 
sand unexpected accidents of life, will strip them from 
him. In one way or other he will be often off his 
guard ; and then the proud man will speak proud 
things, and the covetous man will speak covetous, and 
the malicious man will speak malicious, and the un- 
clean will speak unclean. That which has always 
been the voice of his heart will be now the voice of 
his lips. He will bring out of the evil treasure-house 
of his heart the evil things which may have long been 
hidden there, but which now he either no longer cares 
to conceal, or is no longer able to conceal, therein. 

And would we know our own selves, the deepest 
folds, the most intricate windings of our own hearts, 
let us consider what our words have been, or what 
they now are, not when we are on our good behavior, 
not when we are in the company of those who keep us 
in a certain restraint and awe — parents, employers, 
superiors, those older and better than ourselves, those 
to whom we wish to present ourselves in a favorable 
light, it may be, a far more favorable light than we 
deserve ; but let us consider in what channels our 
speech runs when we are with our familiars, with those 
in whose company we are quite at our ease, who keep 
us in no sort of awe, before whom we lay aside all 
those troublesome masks which were worn in the pres- 
ence of others. Is our speech at such times malignant, 
detracting, backbiting ? or, again, is it vaunting, proud, 
boastful? or, once more, is it gross, carnal, sensual, 
calling the proud happy, speaking good of the covet- 



112 



THE WATCH AGAINST 



ous whom God abhorreth? We may be quite sure 
that as our speech is, so we are ; that what our speech 
is, that is what we are ourselves. It is just the running 
over of the heart ; and as a vessel filled with wine, and 
then overfilled, would run over with wine, or a vessel 
filled with gall would run over with gall, must run 
over with that, and could not run over with any thing 
else ; so what the heart is filled with, with that it will 
run over. . Surely, then, if pure lips are thus the only 
index of a pure heart, and impure lips the certain in- 
dex of an impure heart, if unkind words on the lips 
give sure evidence that no law of kindness reigns in 
the heart, and so on with the rest, there is ample cause 
why we should make David's resolution, why we should 
pray David's prayer. 

But, secondly, how important it is that we should 
seek to order our speech aright, seeing that words 
reach so far, exercise so vast an influence. They have 
been sometimes called " winged ; " and so they are? 
travelling far and fast by paths of their own. And 
this power of theirs, how mighty is it both for good 
and for evil. How mighty for good ! " The words of 
the wise," says Solomon, " are as goads," as such, in- 
citing, urging, prompting to good ; " and as nails fas- 
tened b} r the masters of assemblies," which, therefore, 
where they were fixed shall remain. Nor is this pe- 
culiar to good works only. Others too may be goads, 
but goads to evil, and nails which are fastened only 
too well. How easily, without positively intending 
any mischief, we may by some single word be lowering 
the whole tone of another man's mind, the whole future 



SINS OF THE TONGUE. 



113 



standard of another man's life ! We did not mean to 
do him any positive wrong, and yet we have done him 
the greatest. He has heard us allowing ourselves in 
free, unrestrained speech about others, and he has been 
emboldened to allow himself in the same. He has 
heard some low, worldly, selfish maxim drop from 
our lips, and he has taken it up, and made it hence- 
forth the rule of his life. And we can never say where 
this mischief will end. We may have infected but one, 
while yet he in his turn may have infected many ; and 
the wrong we do is such as in this way may long sur- 
vive the natural term of our lives. How many are 
there now in their graves, some it may be for centuries 
turned to their dust, but whose wicked words, through 
the pen and through the press, have obtained a dread- 
ful immortality, and have taken wings over all the 
earth ! Of these too, as well as of the righteous, it is 
true, being dead, they yet speak. The wanton poet or 
novelist, the unholy fires in whose own heart have long 
since been raked into dust and ashes, he can still with 
his words awaken impure thoughts and imaginations 
in others, setting on fire with sparks as from hell the 
whole course of nature. The witty scoffer against 
God, against his providence, his word, his laws, his 
love, may have past long since to his account ; but the 
words of scorn and unbelief live on, undermining in 
many hearts their faith in God, and in his loving and 
righteous government of the world. And who shall 
dare to limit the effect of any evil word which is 
spoken, or pretend to say how long it may survive as 
this sinful tradition, passing from mouth to mouth, and 



114 



THE WATCH AGAINST 



that whereby many shall be defiled ? This then, 
namely, the /ar-reaching and tvide-r etching mischief 
which our words may effect, is a second consideration 
that might well move us to pray with David, " Set a 
watch, Lord, at the door of my lips." 

But then, thirdly, we might well pray this prayer, 
having regard to the difficulty of the duty which we 
here propose to ourselves ; a difficulty so great, that 
St. James could say, " If any man offend not in word, 
the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the 
whole body." We may seriously mean and purpose 
not to offend with our tongue, and yet in our actual 
intercourse with the world the keeping of this resolu- 
tion proves not easy, but hard ; and we are only too 
soon overtaken with this fault, moved to speak unad- 
visedly with our lips. We are masters and employers 
perhaps, and on occasion of slight neglects or omission 
rebuke harshly and severely those placed under us, un- 
mindful of all the hearty and zealous service which at 
other times they may have rendered ; or we are ser- 
vants, and if ever so little a fault is found with us, if 
we are blamed ever so slightly, we forget the apostolic 
admonition, "not answering again," and reply with 
petulance to those whom we are bound to honor and 
respect. We are parents, and our children's faults are 
noted hastily and passionately, as offences against us, 
not offences against God ; or we are children, and 
being reproved, we answer again as those who will not 
endure to be checked and corrected. We are buyers, 
or we are sellers, and we have spoken something to 
our own gain or our neighbor's loss, for which our 



SINS OF THE TONGUE. 



115 



hearts afterwards condemn us ; words which perhaps 
might pass, weighed in the coarse scales of this world, 
but which would be found wanting if tried in the finer 
balances of the sanctuary. We have committed one 
fault, and almost before we are aware, have made the 
one fault two by some palliation of it, or excuses for it, 
that are not consistent with perfect sincerity and truth. 
We leave some company, and feel that a brother's 
character has suffered at our hands. What we said of 
him, perhaps, was true, but it was not kind ; there was 
no need to have said it ; no call upon us to utter it ; 
to draw it from that forgotten past in which we should 
have left it buried, if the law of a perfect charity had 
ruled in our hearts, or of a perfect kindness on our 
lips. But if in any of these ways we have been, or are 
in danger of being, overtaken with a fault, of slipping 
with the tongue, what additional reason is there here 
why we should keep our watch, and ask of God that 
He would keep his watch no less, over this unruly 
member, which, left to itself, will soon entangle us in 
sin. 

But, once more, we may fitly ask this, and ask it 
earnestly, while we consider the strict judgment and 
account to which God will call us for our use of this 
excellent talent of speech. " By thy words thou shalt 
be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be con- 
demned and from other sayings of Christ our Lord, 
it is to be feared that many a light word, as it seems 
now, will prove heavy enough at the day of judgment ; 
many a word lightly spoken now will have to be 
heavily accounted for then. For, indeed, how can our 



116 



THE WATCH AGAINST 



words do otherwise than play an important part, how 
can they escape being brought into prominent consid- 
eration on that day, if what was just now spoken be 
true, namely, that they are the index and evidence, the 
coming out of the inmost things of our hearts, of the 
deepest things which are there : if it is out of the 
heart's abundance that the mouth speaketh ? Or again, 
if God shall judge men in that day according to their 
works, are not our words our works just as truly as 
anything else which we do, the works of our lips as 
our other doings may be works of our hands, only 
differing from others in that they are a truer index of 
our character, have a deeper significance, and often- 
times act in a far larger circle for good or for evil ? 

Does it seem strange to us, then, my brethren, that 
when Isaiah the prophet stood of a sudden in the pres- 
ence of God, and saw his glory, the first words of con- 
fession which he uttered for himself and for his people 
were these, " Woe is me, for I am undone"? and why 
" undone " ? — " because I am a man of unclean lips, and 
I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips."* 
Shall we wonder that not till a live coal from the altar 
had touched those lips it could be said, " Thine iniquity 
is taken away, and thy sin purged " ? Who needs not 
a like cleansing ? to be cleansed by Christ's blood and 
Christ's spirit, by the sprinkling of his blood, by the 
effectual working of his spirit, from all idle, excessive, 
untruthful, unkind, malicious, flattering, provoking 
words, that I speak not of worse, which he has ever 



* Isaiah vi. 



SINS OF THE TONGUE. 



117 



uttered ; to be cleansed from their guilt, to be deliv- 
ered by the grace and power of God from the recurring 
temptation to fall into those same sins of the tongue 
which have betrayed him in the time past ? 

And yet one word here in conclusion. In praying* 
against sins of the lips, let us in every case go to the 
root of the mischief and pray against those sins of the 
heart out of which these others spring ; else we may 
make more accomplished hypocrites of ourselves, but 
not more perfect Christians. We pray that we may 
not speak uncharitably ; but oh ! let us pray that we 
may not think uncharitably, that the law of love may 
not be on our lips only, but in our hearts. There are 
some cautious persons who exercise much self-restraint 
upon themselves in not speaking unkindly of others, 
because they feel that in so doing they should blemish 
their Christian reputation ; but they make up for it 
by hard, cruel, uncharitable thoughts, which they keep 
to themselves in the deep of their heart. We pray 
that we may not speak proud things with our lips ; 
but if we confine ourselves to this, it may really be 
only a prayer that we may not ourselves come to 
any open shame, lowering ourselves by vaunting, vain- 
glorious speeches in the estimation of others. But he 
who is rightly praying to be delivered from lips of 
pride, as sinful before God, will at the same time make 
his prayer to be delivered from the heart of pride. 
His desire will not be, to seem humble, which is only a 
subtler pride, but to he humble : to be a man of humble 
speech, because he is first a man of humble thoughts : 
to be clothed with the garment of humility within as 



118 



SINS OF THE TONGUE. 



well as without. So, again, every Christian will needs 
hate impure lips ; he will pray that at no unguarded 
moment of his life any word may escape him, growing 
out of the corruption which is in the world through 
lust. But what is this unless he is also asking for a 
clean heart ? What were he who should be content if 
only his words were pure words, and should at the 
same time entertain, or even invite, thoughts and 
imaginations of impurity and uncleanness ? what, in- 
deed, but a whited sepulchre, decent indeed and fair 
without, but full of all filth and rottenness within ? 
Seek, then, I beseech you, to make thorough work here. 
Strive, pray, cry, that in this, as in everything else, 
the root of the matter may be in you. If you pray, 
" Set a watch, Lord, at the door of my lips," or, 
" Deliver me. God, from lying lips and a deceitful 
tongue," remember that behind each and every such 
prayer there should lie another prayer, which is this, 
Make me a clean heart, God, and renew a right 
spirit within me." 



SERMON XII. 



COUNTING THE COST. 

Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and 
counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it ? Lest haply- 
after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all 
that behold it begin to mock him saying, This man began to build, 
and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against 
another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be 
able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with 
twenty thousand ? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off. 
he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. So 
likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, 
he cannot be my disciple. — Luke xiv. 2S-33. 

THERE is an interpretation, I may call it the ordi- 
nary one, of this passage which is encumbered with 
considerable difficulties — difficulties which, I dare say, 
have been more or less felt by many. That interpre- 
tation, as I take it, is as follows : Christ here admon- 
ishes those who were offering themselves as candidates 
for his discipleship, that before they came after Him 
they should seriously consider and ask themselves, 
whether they had strength and resolution sufficient to 
carry them through with that which they undertook ; 
and if, on a sober calculation, they found they had not, 
that they would do wisely not to undertake his dis- 
cipleship ; this rather than, having undertaken, after- 
wards to abandon it. so exposing themselves, and with 

(119) 



120 



COUNTING THE COST. 



themselves the holy interests of the truth itself, to the 
world's mockery and scorn. And even this would not 
be the whole of the mischief; for they would thus 
bring upon themselves, as the second comparison would 
imply, an increased wrath and malice of their great 
adversary, the devil, by that impotent challenge of 
him to a conflict. 

Such is the usual explanation ; but encumbered, as 
I have said, with serious difficulties. For, while we 
can quite understand that the Lord should advise such 
a calculation as this, prudence and foresight being 
eminently features of the Christian character, we can- 
not at all understand how He should give that further 
counsel which the words thus explained make Him to 
give ; namely, that when the means for carrying up 
the tower of the spiritual life are found insufficient, the 
intending builder should then desist from the attempt 
to build at all ; or that, when the forces of him who 
would fain challenge to battle the great adversary are 
found too feeble and too few, he should thereupon de- 
sire of him shameful conditions of peace. 

Surely the gracious Lord's counsels to him about to 
build would be different from these — would be, that, 
discovering the scantiness of his own resources and 
the largeness of the cost, he should desist, not from his 
purpose itself, but from the attempt to carry it through 
in the manner that he had hitherto proposed ; that, 
instead of this, he should furnish himself more abun- 
dantly for the necessary costs out of that inexhausted 
and inexhaustible treasure-house of God, upon which 
he and all might draw without stint and without limit. 



COUNTING THE COST. 



121 



Surely his advice to Mm meditating a war with sin 
and Satan would be, not that, being convinced of the 
power and predominance of his spiritual adversary, he 
should make terms with that enemy, whom to defy to 
the uttermost is his first duty and only safety ; but 
rather that he should seek to multiply his ten thousand, 
to seek more grace, more faith, more of God's Holy 
Spirit, till from weak he had grown strong, till his 
forces exceeded many times even the twenty thousand 
which the enemy could bring against him. 

And then, even if these embarrassments were got 
over, how does this passage, interpreted as commonly 
it is, fit in with what has gone before, and, which is 
still more difficult to answer, with what follows after ? 
For there is the praise, not of spiritual wealth, but of 
spiritual poverty ; there the Lord counts him happy, 
not who discovers that he has much, but who discovers 
that he has nothing ; who renounces, or forsakes, or 
bids farewell to, all that he hath. And I feel very 
confident that this too is what the Lord is urging 
in these two similitudes. He will teach those who 
would fain undertake his discipleship that they must 
begin, not as a proud man supposes (proud even after 
he has taken up the profession of humility) ; not, that 
is, by counting up their riches, but by making discov- 
ery of their poverty ; not by affecting to be something 
even face to face with God, but by acknowledging 
themselves nothing. " There went," we are told, " great 
multitudes with Him but they were those who knew 
not what this going with Him meant : they fancied 
that they could build up the tower of the Christian 
6 ' 



122 



COUNTING THE COST. 



life at their own cost, instead of confessing that they 
had not, and never could have, more than enough to 
make a weak and impotent beginning. He saw them 
preparing to enter on the warfare of the Christian life 
with none of that true emptiness of self which is the 
only secret for obtaining the fulness of God ; dreaming 
that they could hold their own even against Him, when 
He came, searching, trying, tempting, chastening, bring- 
ing into judgment, instead of evermore casting them- 
selves down before Him, throwing themselves merely 
and simply on his mercy, and asking of Him, while it 
was yet time, conditions of peace. 

Christ saw this, and sought to set before them, by 
the help of two examples derived from this world's 
affairs, the mockery and the defeat which would thus 
be their portion ; and at the same time to warn them 
in what way, and by what means, that mockery and 
that defeat, with, indeed, the failure and shipwreck of 
their whole spiritual life, might still be averted. To 
the end that they may understand something of the 
difficulty of that discipleship which they were ready 
so lightly to assume, He compares it to two important 
enterprises ; one the building of a tower, arduous for 
a private person ; the other the carrying on of a war, 
arduous, and full of doubtful and dangerous issues, 
even for a king. 

He is not, in our Lord's estimation, the true spiritual 
builder, such as will bring his work to a successful end, 
who, counting the cost, finds that he has enough, as he 
supposes, to finish the building which he has begun ; 
but the wise and happy builder is he who counts and 



COUNTING THE COST. 



123 



discovers that lie has not enough, that the work far 
exceeds any resources at his command, and who there- 
upon forsakes all that he has, all vain imagination of 
a spiritual wealth of his own : and thenceforth pro- 
ceeds to build, not at his own charges at all, but alto- 
gether at the charges of Grod, waiting upon Him day 
by day for new supplies of strength. He, on the other 
hand, who counts the cost, and finds that, according to 
his estimate, he lias enough, is the foolish builder, whose 
calculations will all be defeated, who will presently 
have run through and exhausted the slender stock upon 
which he began ; and will then leave the spiritual 
building unfinished, having discovered to his infinite 
loss that to rear the fabric of the Christian life is a far 
costlier work than he had anticipated, and to be car- 
ried to an end in a far other strength than that on 
which he had proposed to draw. 

Christ does not, you will observe, deny that such a 
one may begin, that he may lay the foundation ; only 
He affirms that he will bring nothing to perfection. 
For we must not pass too slightly over those words, 
" after he hath laid the foundation," but rather give 
them their full weight, containing as they do a very im- 
portant truth, and no less solemn warning. The spir- 
itual builder here, who leaves off after a while, lias laid 
the foundation, and the right one, for there is no fault 
found with him on this point ; but, just as in another 
place* we are taught that the one right foundation 
may be laid, and yet untrustworthy materials, " wood, 



* 1 Cor. iii. 12-15. 



124 



COUNTING THE COST. 



hay, stubble," may be built even upon that, so here we 
learn that the one right foundation may be laid, and 
yet the building stand still at that point, and never go 
on to completion. 

And what then? "All that behold it begin to 
mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was 
not able to finish." The introduction of the mockery 
is borrowed from the life. There is nothing in this 
world which so provokes scorn as the utterly wasted 
expenditure on some proud building, which, after a 
vast outlay, he who planned it, having totally miscal- 
culated his means, is compelled to leave unfinished, 
open to the winds and rains of heaven ; a ruin from 
the beginning, a monument of his folly that began it. 
We know indeed how this scorn will often embody 
itself in a name given to the unfinished structure. It 
is called this man's or that man's ' folly ; ' and the 
name of the foolish builder is thus kept alive for long 
after-years on the lips of men. The same mockery 
will be the portion of those who have spiritually un- 
dertaken a work, which presently they lack the right 
ability to go through with. The world cannot help 
respecting earnest, entire Christians. It has only 
scorn for the half-hearted ; for those who halt in the 
middle of their career ; who lay their foundations as 
though they would scale heaven, but this done, pres- 
ently leave off, so that nothing but a deformed, shape- 
less heap of bricks marks the Babel they would have 
reared. The world has itself perhaps bid them to leave 
off ; but it does not the less despise them when they 
obey. The scorn which it feels for them may clothe 



COUNTING THE COST. 



125 



itself in the language of praise. The world may re- 
ceive back Us prodigals as with open arms, may profess 
to make festivals for their return. The man, it may 
say, has grown wiser ; he has left off that foolish 
scheme of his, impossible to carry out, and needless 
even if it had been possible ; he has come to his right 
mind ; we may now receive him as one of ourselves. 
But behind all these fair words and welcomes there is 
scorn for this man who began what he had not strength 
to go through with, a scorn which pierces through the 
words of our text : " This man began to build, and was 
not able to finish." 

Such is the first comparison by which our Lord 
warns his disciples of the need of counting the cost, 
and confessing their own utter bankruptcy from the 
beginning, that so, being empty of self, they may be 
full of God. But it is very characteristic of our Lord's 
gracious manner of teaching to set forth an important 
truth under a double aspect, by the aid not merely of 
one similitude, but of two ; having presented it upon 
one side, then to present it upon another. He does so 
here. Having presented the Christian life as the build- 
ing of a tower, He proceeds now to present it as a 
conflict and shock of arms. This comparison is in ad- 
vance upon the other ; sets forth the gravity and seri- 
ousness of the matter in hand still more clearly. 
Weighty as for a private man is the building of some 
great tower, weightier, more hazardous, and that even 
for a king, is the provoking of a war. Many a king 
has in this way pulled down ruin on his head. De- 
ceived by the lying oracles of a greedy, presumptuous 



126 



COUNTING THE COST. 



heart, hoping to overthrow a kingdom, he has indeed 
overthrown one, but it has been his own. Even good 
king Josiah failed here. Challenging to unequal bat- 
tle Pharaoh and the armies of Egypt, he lost on the 
plains of Megiddo his own life and his kingdom's in- 
dependence.* Not, therefore, for nothing had the 
Wise man said, " With good advice make war ; " f and 
the conduct of Hezekiah was only prudent, when 
having provoked the mighty king of Assyria, on ma- 
turer counsel he sent to him while he was yet a great 
way off, saying, " I have offended ; return from me ; 
that which thou puttest on me will I bear. $ Better 
thus, even at the cost of some humiliation, to desire 
conditions of peace, than to advance in blind presump- 
tion, and overmatched and outnumbered, to be shat- 
tered at the first shock with a too prevailing foe. 

Transfer all this to spiritual things ; never, I would 
entreat you, forgetting that any interpretation which 
makes the king who comes against us with twenty 
thousand to be the devil, involves the whole passage in 
inextricable confusion. For what can be the meaning 
of sending an ambassage to him, and desiring con- 
ditions of peace from him, with whom we are bound to 
wage war to the death, and under no circumstances to 
believe that we are overmatched by him, but to believe 
evermore that greater is He who is on our side than he 
which is against us ? It is quite impossible to conceive 
that such counsels of unworthy compromise, of peace 
with him who is to be defied to the uttermost, should 

* 2 Kings x*xiii. 29. -f Prov. xx. 18, % 2 Kings xviii. 14. 



COUNTING THE COST. 127 

ever have proceeded from the lips of that Lord who 
came, by Himself and by his servants, to destroy the 
works of the devil. But all is comparatively easy, 
and every thing here spoken falls into its place, is in 
perfect harmony with all which the Lord has spoken 
elsewhere, so soon as we acknowledge in Him who 
cometh against us with his twenty thousand no other 
than the Lord God Almighty Himself. How many 
passages in the book of Job are explained by the 
parable thus understood, and in their turn help to ex- 
plain it ; as this, " If God will contend with him," 
that is, with the sinner, ;i he cannot answer Him one 
of a thousand ; " * or again, " Behold God findeth oc- 
casions against me ; He counteth me as an enemy. 7 ' 
What light is here thrown on that mysterious scene 
by the brook Jabbok, where Jacob wrestled with the 
angel all the night ; what light on that still more mys- 
terious scene in the inn, where God met Moses by the 
way and sought to kill him.f It is, of course, on 
God's part only a seeming to come against us with the 
army of his temptations, his judgments, and his ter- 
rors ; or rather, it is only a being against us for a 
time, that so He may be with us for ever. So long as 
we think to hold our own before Him, to be any thing 
in his sight, to plead and maintain our own cause, 
saying, with the sons of Zebedee, " We are able," so 
long we are as some foolish king who should think 
with his ten thousand to resist the far mightier king 
who came against him with his twenty thousand. 

* Job. ix. 3. f Exodus iv. 24. 



128 



COUNTING THE COST. 



You will observe that, with a certain irony, the 
Lord so far falls in with the exaggerated estimate 
which men form of their own resources, so far adopts 
their language, as to speak of the ten thousand which 
they bring against God's twenty thousand, as though 
they were only overmatched by Him as one to two ; 
when, indeed, it is true, as between God and the holiest 
saint, if God will contend with him, he cannot answer 
Him one in a thousand. What, then, is the true wis- 
dom of him who has learned the blessed lesson that he 
is thus overmatched, that he cannot stand upon equal 
terms in this conflict, that nature cannot stand, no, nor 
yet grace itself, in so far as it is our grace, so as to 
measure its strength with Him ? The Lord Himself 
shall declare what this wisdom is : " While the other 
is yet a great way off, he sendeth ambassage, and de- 
sireth conditions of peace. The man does not wait 
till, having lifted himself against God, he has learned 
by some shameful fall the disparity of his forces, and 
those with which God will try him, and will convince 
him of his pride and his presumption ; but, while all 
this is yet at a distance, he sends the ambassage of his 
submission, and will walk humbly with his God. He 
does not clothe himself in any righteousness of his 
own, in the righteousness of the natural man, like the 
young ruler, who said of the commandments of God, 
" All these have I kept from my youth up/ 7 — no, nor 
yet in the righteousness which God's Spirit has wrought 
in him, — and propose in this to outface the righteous- 
ness of God. He knows it at the very best a garment 
too narrow to wrap himself withal, armor in which if 



COUNTING THE COST. 



129 



lie has trusted, God will take it from him, and leave 
him shamed and naked before his foes. 

If there were the slightest doubt or misgiving in the 
minds of any in regard of this being the right inter- 
pretation of these most pregnant words, it must, I think, 
be removed by the concluding words : "So likewise 
whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he 
hath, he cannot be my disciple." For this forsaking 
all that he hath on the part of every disciple of Christ, 
what exactly may it mean ? As Christ certainly did 
not intend to resolve his whole church into a mendi- 
cant Order, as He had far higher counsels of perfection 
for it than this, the words must express the loosening 
of ourselves in will and affection, in trust and con- 
fidence, from the creature, and from all reliance on 
the creature ; and this, whether in ourselves or in the 
world ; — with, indeed, the preparedness to renounce in 
outward act what has been already renounced in will, 
if the allegiance which we owe to Christ should at any 
time demand this at our hands. At the same time, it 
is a very shallow interpretation of Christ's words, to 
restrict " all that he hath " to a man's outward faculties 
and possessions. Barnabas, indeed, may have most 
truly fulfilled this commandment, when, " having land 
he sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the 
apostle's feet ; " but I am sure St. Paul was in a far 
deeper sense forsaking all that he had, all which had 
grown and incorporated itself with him, which had 
become a part of his very self, that too which cost him 
a far greater struggle to renounce, when he counted 
all things in which hitherto he had gloried but loss, 



130 



COUNTING THE COST. 



that so lie might be found in Christ, not haying his 
own righteousness, but the righteousness which is of 
God by faith. 

Here was one, my brethren, who thought not to 
build the tower of the Christian life at his own charges, 
yet did not therefore give over the attempt to build it, 
but only went on to build it at the charges of another. 
Here was one who did not count that he could stand, 
when God should set his armies, the armies of his 
righteousness, of his terrors, of his law, in battle-array 
against him ; and who sought therefore a blessed peace 
with God, rather than a miserable and desperate war. 
But how is it with us ? Have we renounced to build 
at our charges, that so we may build at God's ? Have 
we counted up our forces, and found them too few to 
stand against those of the Almighty and the All-holy, 
and finding this, cast ourselves merely and only on 
the riches of God's grace, desiring of Him the true 
conditions of an everlasting peace, of that covenant 
of peace which He has ordered and made sure in the 
blood of his dear Son ? This is the question of ques- 
tions, which concerns us more nearly than every other 
question in the world. 



< 



SERMON XIII. 



RESIST THE DEVIL, AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU. 
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. — James iv. 7. 

HERE is first a duty, " Resist the devil," and then 
a promise linked with the fulfilment of that duty, 
" he will flee from you." I shall occupy your attention 
to-day first and chiefly with the duty and the ways in 
which we may best fulfil it ; at the same time not leav- 
ing wholly untouched the second portion of my subject, 
— the blessed promise which is connected with that 
duty, and whereby we are encouraged to an earnest 
and persevering and manful fulfilment of it. 

And first the duty, " Resist the devil." Now, the 
adversary whom we are here bidden to resist is only 
known to us through his temptations, through the evil 
suggestions which he causes to rise up out of the deep 
of our hearts, through the fiery darts with which he 
seeks to set on fire in us the whole course of nature. 
Him we are not brought into personal immediate con- 
tact with, as was our Lord when He was tempted of 
the devil in the wilderness. Temptations, suggestions 
of evil, solicitations to evil, these are the signs and 
tokens of that mighty though fallen Spirit's presence 
and power and working among us ; so that for all 
practical purposes the words of St. James might be 

(181) 



132 



RESIST THE DEVIL, 



translated into such language as this : Strive manfully 
against temptations, and you have God's promise and 
pledge that these, instead of overcoming you, shall be 
overcome by you. And I do not think that we shall 
ill employ our time this morning if we a little consider 
some of the means and methods by which we may best 
fulfil that command, and inherit this promise. For, 
indeed, occupying ourselves with this matter, we shall 
occupy ourselves with one which concerns most nearly 
every one of us. All of us are tempted. Our tempta- 
tions may be of the most infinitely different kinds, but 
the fact of temptation is common to us all. There is 
not one of us, young or old, rich or poor, learned or 
simple, whose whole life is not, in one shape or another, 
and whether he will acknowledge it or no, one long 
temptation. There are temptations in adversity, temp- 
tations in prosperity ; temptations in sickness, and 
temptations in health ; temptations for the poor, and 
temptations for the rich ; temptations for the young, 
and temptations for the old ; things pleasant to the 
flesh seeking to allure and entice us from our allegiance 
to God, and things painful seeking to terrify us from 
that allegiance ; the adversary trying with us, as with 
our Lord, now the door of desire, and now that of 
fear. 

If, then, we would resist him, what shall be our first 
wisdom? Plainly this, to resist him in the only 
strength in which he can be effectually resisted, in the 
strength of Him who has said, " My strength is suffi- 
cient for thee putting on the armor of God. How 
often we forget this ; not altogether perhaps, but in 



AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU. 133 

part ; relying on some strength of our own ; wielding 
weapons which are carnal • acting as foolishly herein 
as David would have acted, if, going to fight with the 
Philistine, he had encased and encumbered himself 
with the unserviceable armor of Saul. In all human 
likelihood this would have proved fatal to him. He 
would have forfeited and foregone the secret of his 
strength, that strength lying in the weakness which 
caused him to lean upon God, and thus to become par- 
taker of a heavenly strength. So, too, let our strength 
be a strength in G-od and from God ; a strength gotten 
in prayer, gotten from the Word, gotten through sac- 
raments ; a strength not such as that which the rude 
boisterous Esaus of this world may boast of, but such 
as the Jacobs know, who have wrestled with God's 
angel and have prevailed. And how prevailed? with 
tears and supplications, which are the only prevailing 
arms of man with God, refusing to let Him go until 
He bless them. For of this let us be sure, that, if we 
lean upon any strength of our own, or trust in our own 
hearts, there is no temptation so weak but it may prove 
too strong for us ; while, on the other hand, if we lean 
upon the strength of God, put on his armor, seek his 
grace, there is no temptation so strong but that we 
may and shall prove stronger than it. 

But, secondly, let it be ours to resist temptations at 
the beginning, when they first display themselves as 
such. This is the only wisdom. Then the temptation 
is comparatively weak, and you are strong. But if you 
let it grow, dally with it, entertain it ever so little, the 
positions will be reversed, and it will be strong, and 



134 



RESIST THE DEVIL, 



you weak. Now it is a dwarf ; do not wait to engage 
in a death-struggle with it till it has grown to be a 
giant. The darts of Satan, that is, the temptations 
which he injects into our hearts, are called "fiery 
darts " by St. Paul, with allusion to a practice in an- 
cient warfare of shooting darts or arrows wrapped 
round with lighted tow into a besieged city, that these, 
kindling a flame where they lighted, might presently 
set all in a blaze. Nothing could have availed to 
hinder this catastrophe but extreme watchfulness on 
the part of the besieged, treading out, or otherwise 
extinguishing, these fiery missiles as fast as they fell. 
Now temptations are exactly in this same way " fiery 
darts," the messengers of mischief, which our ghostly 
enemy launches against us. He means that where they 
light upon our hearts they should kindle there ; and 
with so much in us all which is akin to the temptation, 
nothing will hinder this except the utmost vigilance 
on our parts, and a treading out of these sparks of 
hell before they have burst into a blaze. That memo- 
rable fire which two centuries ago laid nearly one half 
of this city in ashes, which defied for days and days 
the efforts of thousands of men, there was no doubt a 
moment when a pitcher of water in the hands of a little 
child might have quenched it. So, too, the sin which 
has now grown to such a fearful mastery over a man 
that it is the tyrant of his life, it was once but a wan- 
dering temptation, a vague floating suggestion to evil, 
against which, if he had resolutely shut the door of his 
heart when it first presented itself for admission, he 
might perhaps never have heard of it again. That 



AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU. 



135 



verse of the Psalmist has perplexed many, "Blessed 
shall be he who taketh thy children, and dasheth them 
against the stones but it need perplex none as ap- 
plied to the brood of Satan, sinful thoughts and sinful 
desires, which cannot be too early dashed against the 
stones of God's law. If David, on that occasion known 
too well, had made a covenant with his eyes, and with- 
drawn them at once, what a blurred and blotted page 
in his history might have been spared. 

Yet it must be owned that this which I spoke of 
just now, namely, of temptations small at the begin- 
ning, and only great through neglect, though the gen- 
eral, is not the invariable, rule with them ; for some- 
times they present themselves full grown at the first, 
challenging the very utmost strength which we have, 
if we are not to be overmastered by them. And there- 
fore I would urge, as another branch of Christian pru- 
dence in the resisting of evil, that we do not wait till 
the temptation comes, and then begin our preparations 
against it. Arm yourself against it beforehand. What 
were he for a soldier who only when the signal of battle 
had been already given, and when he stood face to face 
with his foe, began to rivet the joints of his armor, and 
to put a sharper edge on his sword ? Or how would 
that nation fare which should be providing for the first 
time fleets and armies and arsenals, when it was already 
committed to deadly strife with another people as 
mighty as itself? The conflict is a time for using 
weapons, not for preparing them. And who can say 
how suddenly, how fiercely, from what unlooked-for 
side, a temptation may assail him ? How, think you, 



136 KESIST THE DEVIL, 

would it have fared with JosejVh, if, cast suddenly as 
he was into that fiery furnace of temptation, his wanton 
mistress seeking* to entice him to sin, he had not al- 
ready, and by many prayers going before, sought and 
obtained the gift and grace of chastity from God ? Do 
we not feel sure, if he had needed then for the first time 
to seek this grace, he would not have sought, he would 
not have obtained it, but have been in that fierce fur- 
nace scorched and utterly consumed ? Say then often 
to yourself : I am in a world full of temptation, the 
fiery darts of the wicked one are flying thick and fast 
about me ; if one lights not on my heart to-day, it will 
light to-morrow or the next day ; my wisdom, my 
safety, is to seek betimes that grace which sooner or 
later I must need. It will be too late then first to seek 
it when the need of it has actually arrived. Neither 
content yourself with saying this, but actually seek it, 
and store it against the evil time which is coming, that 
you may be able to stand in that evil time, and, having 
done all, to stand. 

But once more, while we desire to arm ourselves 
against the whole circle of temptations, known and 
unknown, future as well as present, it will be our wis- 
dom to make especially strong our defences against the 
temptations which are the most threatening to our own 
spiritual life. You remember the Apostle speaks to 
the Hebrews of the sin which so easily besets them ; 
and we have learned from those words of his to speak 
of men's " besetting sin." Whether what we mean by 
" besetting sin " did lie in his intention may be doubt- 
ful ; but the phrase itself is a most valuable one, does 



AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU. 



137 



express a most important truth in the spiritual life of 
each one among us. "We have every one of us beset- 
ting sins. I use the plural, for they are sometimes, 
alas ! not one but many ; sins, that is, which more easily 
get advantage over us than others, to which we have 
a mournful proclivity, an especial predisposition ; it 
may be through natural temperament, it may be through 
faults in our education, it may be through circumstances 
in which we are placed, it may be through having given 
way to them in times past, and thus broken down on 
their side more than on any other the moral defences 
of our soul ; the soul in this resembling paper, which, 
where it has been blotted once, however careful the 
erasure of the blot may have been, there more easily 
blots and runs anew than elsewhere. It is, then, a 
point of obvious prudence to strengthen the defences 
of the city of the soul there where they are felt and 
known to be weakest — where that is, every one who 
has kept any close record of the sad secrets of his own 
spiritual life, will in his own case abundantly know — 
to watch and pray against all sin, but above all, and 
with especial emphasis and earnestness, against the sin 
which most easily besets us. 

And yet this must not be to the neglect of the other 
avenues by which temptation may find an entrance into 
the fortress of our hearts. If many a city has been 
taken on its weakest side, it is also true that many a 
city has been taken on its strongest side ; which was 
counted so strong that no watch was kept, even as no 
danger was dreaded there. As regards the spiritual 
life of men, we are not without solemn warnings and 



138 



RESIST THE DEVIL, 



proofs in Scripture that this may easily coine to pass-. 
Who so wise as Solomon ? and yet this wisest king is 
betrayed into the gross folly of idolatry. What man 
braver and bolder by nature than Peter ever walked 
this earth ? and yet the taunt of a maid-servant is suf- 
ficient to terrify him, and to cause him to deny his 
faith and his Lord. We think that we are not exposed 
to one particular form of temptation. Let none be too 
sure of this ; and in resisting one form of evil, never 
let us forget that there are others in the world. 
Fleshly sins may be watched against, and yet room 
may be given in the heart for spiritual wickedness, 
pride, self-righteousness, and the like. Yea, the vic- 
tories gained over the lusts of the flesh may themselves 
minister to those subtler mischiefs of the spirit ; and 
our fate may be like that of the hero in the Maccabees,* 
who was crushed by the falling elephant which himself 
had slain. There is a white devil of spiritual pride as 
well as a black devil of fleshly lusts. Satan can trans- 
form himself, where need is, into an angel of light. If 
only he can ruin us, it is all the same to him by what 
engines he does it ; all are fish for his net, profligate 
publicans and proud Pharisees ; it is small matter to 
him whether we go down into hell as gross carnal sin- 
ners, or as elated self-righteous saints ; nay, surely he 
must be best pleased in the latter case, for these last 
are twofold more the children of hell than the others. 
Set a watch, therefore, I would say, all round your 
heart ; not on one side only, but on all ; for you can 



* 1 Mace. vi. 46. 



AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU. 



139 



be never sure on which side temptation will assail. 
" Walk circumspectly," says the apostle, which means 
looking all round about you, having eyes, so to speak, 
in the back of your head. 

But one counsel of Christian prudence more. Never 
count a temptation so triumphed over, so beaten off, 
that it will never assault you any more. Satan has 
been called Beelzebub, or the god of flies, some tell us, 
because he will not take a repulse, because he comes 
back again and again, because it is impossible so to 
drive him away that he will not return. Consider the 
Lord of Glory Himself. When the Tempter, thrice 
encountered and thrice defeated in the wilderness, left 
Him, it was only, as we are expressly told, " for a 
season." There were other hours and powers of dark- 
ness still to come, when the Prince of this world should 
make further proof in the garden whether there was 
not something which he could claim for his own even 
in that Lord who had so foiled and baffled him in the 
desert. And shall we think that when he departs from 
us it is more than for a season ? Never, so long as 
you bear about these sinful bodies, count any corrup- 
tion to be so dead in you that you are perfectly safe 
from it henceforth, that it can never stir or trouble 
you again. How much that seems dead, by a sad ex- 
perience will be shown to have been only sleeping ; 
like snakes, which, frozen in winter, lose for a while 
their power to harm, appear as though there were no 
life in them, but, brought to the warmth, can hiss and 
sting again. How many an old corruption is perhaps 
at this present moment thus torpid and inactive in us, 
6* 



140 



RESIST THE DEVIL, 



which yet only waits the returning warmth of a suit- 
able temptation to revive in all its malignant strength 
anew. 

When you seem to have got the better in the strug- 
gle with some sin, let not this content you, namely, to 
have beaten off and repulsed the foe. Be not con- 
tented to have just escaped defeat, nor say, like some 
timid commander who knows not how to use success, 
that this victory is enough ; but rather follow up the 
victory, make the most of it, hang as upon the rear of 
the broken foe, seek to break his power, not for the 
moment only, but for ever. In the struggles of this 
world it sometimes may be, it often is, a point of gen- 
erosity, or even of wisdom, to spare a conquered foe, 
but in the conflicts of the soul never. We are only too 
ready to spare a lust. We do not, perhaps, desire that 
it should get dominion over us ; but there is something 
in us which so takes its part that we shrink back from 
inflicting any thing like a deathblow upon it. And 
yet be sure that such pity, such mercy, is as ill-timed 
and misplaced, as much displeasing to God, as the self- 
interested pity of Saul when he spared Agag, as the 
weak pity of Ahab when he let go out of his hand 
Benhadad — " Benhadad, my brother" as he called him,* 
but a man whom G-od had appointed to utter destruc- 
tion, and Ahab to execute the doom upon him. Our 
lusts, our sins, God has in like manner appointed them 
to utter destruction, and us to destroy them ; but if we 
spare them, or if we are satisfied with just so much tri- 



* 1 Kings xx. 32. 



AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU. 



141 



umph over them as shall prevent them from altogether 
triumphing over us, and this done, suffer them to live and 
move, what can we expect ? What but that which the 
children of Israel found, when they would not obey 
God's commands, and, root and branch, extirpate the 
wicked inhabitants of Canaan ? They were content if 
only they could just find room for themselves in a land 
which had been wholly given them ; but that of driving 
out the Canaanites altogether, it was too toilsome, too 
painful a task for them to undertake ; it would have 
deprived them, moreover, of serviceable vassals. The 
Canaanite would dwell in the land ; a'nd they suffered 
him there, leaving half their commission unfulfilled. 
But with what results ? Those whom they spared were 
traps in their way and thorns in their side ; yea, from 
time to time taking advantage of their weakness, rose 
up in strength, and brought them into bitter bondage 
again. I leave the application to yourselves ; for the 
very few words which I can add must refer, not to the 
duty, " Resist the devil," but to the promise annexed 
to the duty, " he will flee from you." 

I can conceive some thoughtful hearer saying in his 
heart, How does this promise agree with what has just 
been spoken, and what, indeed, our own experience 
bears out, namely, that temptations, though beaten off, 
will return again and again, that we may never dare 
to count a corruption to be so absolutely dead as that 
it can never revive, never trouble us again ? Is this 
consistent with the promise, " Resist the devil, and he 
will flee from you " ? We are quite sure that it must 
be, and a little consideration will show us in what way 



142 



RESIST THE DEVIL, 



it actually is. The words cannot mean, that after one 
earnest and successful struggle against temptation, or 
the devil who is the author of temptation, he will so 
leave us as never to return and vex us any more. To 
give such a latitude to the words would be absurd. 
This was not true even of Christ Himself. But the 
words of the promise do meet a very crying need and 
necessity of the heart ; and there are times when they 
have an exceeding preciousness for the soul. Take 
some poor, perplexed, tempted man : he is in the fires 
of some fierce temptation ; hitherto he has not been 
scorched and consumed by them, but he feels as if they 
must soon kindle upon him. Satan is lying in wait 
for his soul ; he has escaped hitherto, but it seems to 
him as by miracle ; and he says in his heart, as David 
said at last, " I shall now perish by the hand of Saul." 
Some hideous suggestion of the Evil One presents 
itself again and again to his soul, and he asks himself, 
almost in despair, Must it be ever thus ? must I feel at 
each moment of my spiritual life that there is but a 
step between me and death ? must I go on through my 
whole life in this never-ceasing struggle with impure, 
defiling, hateful, blasphemous thoughts ? 

The words of the promise of my text say, No ; this 
is not thy portion, this is not the portion of any faith- 
ful servant of the Lord. Thou shalt, indeed, always 
need to stand upon thy guard ; from time to time, 
during thy whole life, thou shalt have to do most 
strong and earnest battle against thy foes ; but this 
temptation, the devil in the shape he now wears, resist 
him by faith, and he will flee from thee presently. 



AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU. 143 

Whatever else may hereafter come, the stress of the 
present temptation will pass away from thee, even as 
the stress of a mightier passed away from thy Lord ; 
and thou too shalt know something of the joy of a 
temptation met and overcome, something of the joy 
which thy Lord and Saviour knew, when, after He had 
fought and conquered for thee, angels came in the 
wilderness and ministered unto Him. 



SERMON XIY. 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 

And He came and found them asleep again : for their eyes were heavy. 
And He left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, 
saying the same words. Then cometh He to his disciples, and saith 
unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at 
hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. — 
Matt. xxvi. 43-45. 

THERE is nothing, perhaps, in the whole history of 
our Lord's sufferings which so brings home to us 
the depth and reality of those sufferings as the Agony 
in the Garden of Gethsemane ; not the cruel mockings, 
not the forlorn masquerade of royalty, not the scourg- 
ing with Roman rods, no, nor yet the shame and the 
bitterness of the cross itself. All these were borne 
with such meekness and such majesty, such calm en- 
durance, such a steadfast will, He who endured them 
had so set his face like a flint, that we might be 
tempted to a secret thought as though He felt not as 
other men ; we might suspect that, being He was God, 
these insults, these outrages, these pains, touched not 
Him to the quick as they would have touched another ; 
that their bitterness was not to Him as it would have 
been to the other children of Adam. Such thoughts 
might easily rise in our hearts ; thoughts no less dis- 
honoring to Him than injurious to our own spiritual 

(144) 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



145 



life, separating, as they would, Christ from us, and us 
from Christ : they might, I say, arise, if we had not 
these strong cryings and tears and prayers to tell us 
how that hour of Passion, as it drew near, presented 
itself to his mind ; if we had not, of God's infinite con- 
descension and grace, been permitted to behold Him 
in his weakness (I may venture to use this language) as 
well as in his strength ; if the veil had not thus been 
drawn back, and we admitted to see all, even the 
awful and innermost secrets of his soul's preparation 
for that hour of extremest trial. 

And these leave no doubt that we have a human 
sufferer in Him, — the augustest, indeed, that ever 
shared our flesh and blood, but still most truly a 
sharer in it, as in every thing which belongs to man, 
except, indeed, his sin. And wonderful is the human 
character of all his feelings at this hour. We all 
know how men in some deep anguish or desolation of 
spirit shrink from utter loneliness. The friend that is 
made for adversity, whose very silence is better than 
the world's loudest consolations, whose mere presence 
is itself strength, such a friend is precious then ; and 
that which would have been precious to other men was 
precious also to Him in whom all which is truly human 
was perfectly fulfilled. He too had chosen friends 
from among men ; and now, when his soul was exceed- 
ing sorrowful, even unto death, He would have them 
to tarry near and to watch with Him. There were 
three, and these three the flower and crown of the 
apostolic band, whom He selected for this ; Peter, the 
first who had confessed Him as the Christ, the Son of 
7 



146 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



the living God ; and John, among many loved, the 
best beloved of all ; and James, who, earliest among 
the apostles, should drink to the full of his Lord's cup 
of pain, and be baptized with his Lord's baptism of 
blood. 

They might not, indeed, even these three, be close 
by his side ; for none might be actually present at those 
mysterious pleadings of the Son with the Father, when 
even He seemed to stagger for a moment under the 
weight of the world's sin. But still they should not 
be far off. When He said, " Tarry ye here, and watch 
with Me," it was only a little further, about a stone's 
cast, that He was withdrawn from them •* and they in 
this nearness were to watch with Him and to pray, to 
pray for themselves that they might not enter into 
temptation, that they might draw out the full blessing 
of that awful hour ; and also, as we cannot doubt, they 
were meant to help Him with their prayers. 

This was Ms meaning ; but it had been appointed 
otherwise of his Father. He who appointed all for 
the glory of his Son, had appointed that He should 
tread the wine-press alone, even the wine-press of this 
mortal agony, and of the people there should be none to 
help Him. These Apostles were men, they were flesh 
and blood, and they failed Him. While He was praying 
they were sleeping. Once before the same had befallen 
them. At the Transfiguration they had been as little 
able to bear the weight of glory, as now they were 
able to bear the weight of this exceeding sorrow ; and 



* Luke xxii. 41. 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



147 



there, too, their eyes had been heavy with sleep. But 
now the leaden weights of a still more untimely slum- 
ber lay heavy upon them. Thrice He returned to 
them, and thrice sought to arouse them from their 
lethargy at once of body and of soul, but in vain. If 
anything could have done this, we might suppose that 
mournful, reproachful appeal, " What, could ye not 
watch with Me one hour ?" would have been effectual 
for it. But no, it is the hour and power of darkness ; 
there is no help, and little comfort, in them. They 
might have shared with the angel the inconceivable 
honor of strengthening the Son of God ; and of Him 
who had been, and should be, their Helper always, 
they might have been the helpers once. But they would 
not ; and at length the hour is past, the opportunity is 
gone, the struggle is over ; and He comes to them now, 
not saying any longer, " Watch with Me," not bidding 
them any more to watch and pray ; but his words have 
a sadder, a far sadder import than this, " Sleep on now, 
and take your rest ; behold the hour is at hand, and the 
Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 

What a melancholy meaning that " Sleep on now " 
has, if only we understand it aright. It is not that 
He was now approving or allowing that drowsiness 
of spirit in which they were holden still ; far from it. 
But the import of the words we may take to have been 
this : The opportunity is past and gone. Even if you 
should at length shake off this clinging sloth, yet now 
it would profit nothing in this matter. Other oppor- 
tunities of service may indeed occur, but this one is 
gone, and for ever ; the moment, with all its rich pos- 



148 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



sibilities of service, the golden moment, has fled ; the 
battle has been fought without you ; the victory has 
been won without you. You may sleep on now, and 
take your rest, for the time when your watching and 
waking would have profited has passed away. 

Ah, brethren, how bitterly must the three Apostles, 
fervent lovers of their Lord, although greatly wanting 
now, have subsequently mourned that they should have 
failed their Lord in such a moment as that, a moment 
which never in the history of their lives, which never 
in the history of the world, could return again ; how 
must they have resolved not to slight, but to make 
much of, every future occasion of high devotion to Him 
which should present itself to them, lest that too, by a 
carnal drowsiness, through the same unreadiness of 
spirit, should slip by and escape them for ever. And 
my desire is, that we should take this lesson home with 
us to-day, namely, that special occasions for serving 
God and his church, for bringing glory to Him, are 
in their very nature swift of passage, and, when they 
are past, often irrecoverable ; that, if we are wanting 
in watchfulness to recognize them, and in what I may 
call the grace of Christian promptitude to seize them 
and make them our own at once, we cannot afterwards 
recall them, we cannot, by any self-willed efforts of 
our own, reproduce the combination of circumstances 
under which they offered themselves to us. Does not 
this, at every turn of our lives, approve itself true ? 

How often, for instance, in our daily life, in the 
social intercourse which we hold with our fellow-men, 
if we will not bear witness for Christ on the moment, 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



149 



we cannot do so at all. If we will not throw ourselves 
into the gap at the instant, then, while we are delib- 
erating, while we are mustering our tardy forces, the 
gap is closed, and it becomes impossible for us to do 
at all what we would not do at once. The stream of 
conversation flows on, and cannot be brought back to 
the point where it then was. The pernicious maxim 
was left unreproved, the word dishonorable to God, 
or injurious to his servants, to his truth, was suffered 
to pass by unrebuked ; and it must continue so now, 
for that word which we would not speak at once, we 
cannot now speak at all. We may sleep on, and take 
our rest ; for the time when we might have served God 
and the cause of his truth in this matter is past. 

Nor does it fare otherwise with acts of kindness and 
deeds of love. It is, indeed, quite true of these, that, 
in one shape or another, they may always be done by 
those who have any mind or affection to them. In a 
world of woe like ours, the stripped and wounded 
traveller lies ever in the way, if only there be the good 
Samaritan to see him and to help him. But it is not 
the less true that many precious opportunities of bind- 
ing up wounds, strengthening the weak, comforting the 
mourner, may escape us unimproved, and, having once 
escaped, may have passed from us for ever ; for they are 
as guests from another world, whom, if we do not invite 
to turn in upon the instant when they show themselves 
to us, we may afterwards follow, but we shall not over- 
take them, least of all shall we persuade to turn back 
again at our bidding. The need which we might have 
helped, but did not, another has helped in our stead ; 



150 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



or it has outgrown all human help, because we would 
not help it in time. The prayers which we might have 
offered for a suffering brother in the hour of his sore 
temptation or his pain, with which we might have 
helped him, he has struggled through without them, or 
has passed, it may be, into a world where they cannot 
reach to aid him. 

Nor will it fare otherwise in regard of our own 
spiritual life. We have great need of watchfulness to 
turn to present and immediate account God's manifold 
dealings with us. When the heart is deeply stirred 
by feelings of gratitude and joy, we must seek to direct 
those feelings into their due channel at once, or else 
they will run to waste, and the blessing which they 
might have brought will escape us altogether. We 
must seek to embody them at the time in some distinct 
act of thanksgiving and praise, in the dedication, it 
may be, of some special portion of our substance to 
the service of God, or to the needs of his saints ; or 
else, if we do not give diligence to embody our grati- 
tude at once, we scarcely shall do so at a later day, 
when, in the very necessity of things, the high tides of 
our grateful thanksgiving shall have somewhat ebbed 
and abated. 

And if this behoves in the time of a great joy, it 
behoves still more in the time of a great sorrow, which, 
as such, ought also to be the time of a great holiness. 
The fruits of such a time, the peaceable fruits of right- 
ousness which that season was intended to bear for us, 
must be gathered at once ; or if they are not thus 
gathered by us at once, they will not be at all. The 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



151 



mere onward course of time, the succession of events, 
the business of the world, will inevitably rob us of that 
sorrow, deaden at least the quickness and liveliness of 
it. If, then, when that sorrow was fresh and new, we 
did not use it, we did not compel it to yield up its 
blessing to us, the sweet Avhich it had as well as the 
bitter, at a later day we shall seek in vain to extract 
from it that spiritual profit with which once it was 
charged for us to the full. 

In like manner, how many a man mourns during his 
whole after-life the idleness and wasted opportunities 
of his school-days or his college-days. Mourning this, 
he repairs perhaps in part, but he can never repair 
entirely, the negligences and omissions of that particu- 
lar period of his life. There is a deficiency, a weak- 
ness, an imperfection, which he can never quite get rid 
of, which no after-toil, though many times larger in 
amount than what then would have been needed, avails 
to remove ; and this because there were certain things, 
according to the constitution of his moral and mental 
nature, which were intended to be learned then, and 
which can never be so well or so effectually learned at 
any other time. 

And apply, I would beseech you, all this which has 
been said to the present season of Lent, to this week 
of Passion above all, which, though fast running out, 
is still partly ours. If this holy season slips by us un- 
improved, if toe will not watch our one hour with Christ, 
if we will not enter into his sufferings as at this time 
so vividly brought before us, if those solemn words of 
the Litany, " by thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy 



152 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



cross and passion/' have no deeper meaning for us at 
this time than at another, then, indeed, other like times 
may come round to us ; another year, should we be 
permitted to see it, may bring with it its own oppor- 
tunities, its own holy seasons, its fasts and its festivals, 
its Lent and its Easter, but the blessing of this present 
time will have been missed, and that without recovery. 
We cannot later in the year, even if we should desire 
it, go back for it and find it ; we cannot in Pentecost 
obtain the blessing of Lent. We may, indeed, obtain 
the Pentecostal blessing, though in stinted measure as 
compared to what it might have been, but the Lent one 
is gone ; we cannot, by arbitrary and self-willed efforts 
of our own, recall or reproduce a time which, in the 
natural course of things, came to us, and which we then 
refused to entertain, any more than we could hope to 
gather spring flowers in the season of autumn fruits. 

My Christian brethren, what a motive and argument 
is here for making much of each holy time, each pre- 
cious occasion which, in the course of our Christian 
year, is brought near us for some special service of the 
Lord our God ; this motive, I mean, that each is in its 
very nature irrevocable. How often we are satisfied 
with saying, I have not prayed well to-day ; I have not 
shut the door of my heart, that door by which vain 
thoughts find entrance there ; but I will pray better, 
with more collection of spirit, to-morrow. I have been 
inattentive to-day in God's house ; I have drawn near 
to the table of the Lord with a cold and careless heart ; 
but I will be a more earnest worshipper, a more devout 
partaker, when I tread those courts, when I approach 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



153 



that table again. I have left undone this labor of 
love which God put in ray way : but the next shall not 
escape me in like manner ; the good works which He 
has prepared for me to perform, I will not fail to per- 
form them then ; the good words which He would have 
me speak, I will not leave them unspoken again. And 
so time creeps on with us : we are ever going to be ear- 
nest, devoted Christians, but never being such ; ever 
missing a present benefit and blessing, and ever consol- 
ing ourselves with the expectation of reaping a future. 
But how unlikely it is that we shall do so ; how much 
more probable that the negligence of to-day will be 
followed up, yea, will be punished, by the worse negli- 
gence of to-morrow. 

And even if that unwarranted expectation, that 
what we miss to-day we shall not miss equally to-mor- 
row, should, against all likelihood, be fulfilled, is this 
enough ? shall we thus recover and get back the lost ? 
"We may thus, indeed, arrest our steps in that down- 
ward course of spiritual declension and decay which it 
is only too easy to tread ; but we are very far from 
replacing ourselves where, but for these negligences 
and omissions, we might have been. Surely we are 
not so strong that we can afford to lose the returns of 
any one prayer, the strength of any one communion, 
the grace of any one holy ordinance of our faith ? Do 
we not, in our own utter weakness and helplessness, 
need them all, the strength, the grace, the consecration 
which each several one was ordained to impart to us ? 

Apply all this to the present time. Christ has been 
saving to you now, as He said to the three disciples 
7* 



154 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



of old, Watch with Me one hour, watch with Me in the 
garden, wait on Me at the Cross. Help the sufferings, 
if not of my natural body, yet of my spiritual body, the 
church, by your prayers, by your intercessions, by 
your active ministrations of love. But what if, instead 
of this, your eyes have been heavy ; what if there has 
been no shaking off the drowsiness of your spirits, no 
girding up of the loins of your minds to active well- 
doing, if your hearts have been overcharged during all 
this time with the cares and pleasures of this world ; 
if it has been thus with you, what words can you, then, 
look to hear from your Lord but words of a sad rebuke, 
such as those which the three disciples heard ? When 
this season is past, when it is gone, and belongs to the 
things which never can be again, He will say to you, 
and the words will sound sadly in your ears, Sleep on 
now, and take your rest ; you might have helped Me, 
but you did not ; you might have won the blessing of 
this Lent, but it has escaped you. Other blessings 
may be in store for you still, though this is less likely 
than it was ; other gifts and graces you may still make 
your own ; but what this season would have yielded, 
of strength to serve Me, of closer fellowship with my 
sufferings, and of the holiness consequent on this, of 
nearer acquaintance with my Cross, and of higher 
peace derived from that acquaintance, and from the 
blood of that Cross sprinkled by faith anew upon your 
souls, this you must be contented to forego. If words 
like these would have a mournful sound in our ears, 
let us so watch and pray that they may never be spoken 
unto us. 



SERMON XV. 



CHRIST THE LAMB OP GOD. 

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and garth, Behold 
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. — John 
i. 29. 

TT has been sometimes asked and debated, to which 
i of the lambs of sacrifice, ordained in the Old Testa- 
ment, did the Baptist here refer ; with which did he 
liken that immaculate Lamb, who, being without spot 
and stain, should take away our spots and stains, and 
bear the collective sin of the world. Did St. John 
allude to the daily lamb of the morning and evening 
sacrifice ? or was it to the lamb of the passover, com- 
memorating the old deliverance from Egypt ? or was 
it to some other of the many lambs which were pre- 
scribed in the law of Moses, as a portion of the ritual 
of sacrifice appointed there? The question is surely 
a superfluous one. The reference is not special, but 
comprehensive. It is to none of these in particular, 

* This sermon, preached at Cambridge before it was preached in the 
Abbey, has been already published in a small volume of Academical 
Sermons. The limited circulation to which such volumes are doomed, 
together with the exceeding importance of the subject it treats of, must 
be my apology for reorinting it here. 

(155) 



156 



CHEIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



being indeed to them all. They severally set forth in 
type and in figure some part o£ that which He fulfilled 
in substance and in life ; in Him, not now a lamb of 
men, but the Lamb of God, being at length fulfilled to 
the uttermost the significant word of Abraham, " God 
will provide Himself a lamb.' 7 

The disciples of John understand the intention with 
which he thus designated Jesus unto them ; they un- 
derstand it, if not at the first designation, yet at the 
second ; and as the Evangelist tells us (he probably 
was himself one of the two disciples, Andrew being the 
other), they " heard him speak, and they followed 
Jesus." They quitted one master, and joined them- 
selves to another. There was a drawing, attractive 
power in that word about the Lamb, the taker away 
of the world's sin, which no other word possessed or 
could possess. At a later day, Christ Himself declared, 
"I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." 
Already this potent drawing had begun ; and set be- 
tween two magnets, the disciples showed at once which 
was the mightier of the two. The Baptist, indeed, had 
met and had satisfied many needs of men's spirits, — 
their need of repentance, of confession of sin, of amend- 
ment of life ■ but there were other needs which he could 
not meet. The spirit of man cries out for something 
deeper even than these, something which shall reach 
farther back ; which shall not be clogged with sinful 
infirmities, as his own repentance even at the very best 
must be. Men cry for some work to rest upon which 
shall not be their work, and thus underlying the weak- 
nesses of every thing human, but which shall be God's ; 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



157 



perfect, complete, to which nothing need be added, 
from which nothing can be taken away. They feel 
that behind and beyond their repentance, even though 
that repentance be wrought "by the Spirit of God, there 
must be something which God has not so much wrought 
in them, as for them ; and that on this they must rest, 
if they are to find abiding peace for the soul ; a rock 
to flee to, which is higher than they ; higher than 
their repentance, than their faith, than their obedience, 
even than their new life in the Spirit. Now this Rock 
is Christ ; and John pointed to this Rock, and the two 
at once understood him. They had longed after amend- 
ment of life, and John had helped them thus far ; but 
they yearned for more than this, for atonement, pro- 
pitiation, ransom, a conscience purged from dead 
works by the blood of sprinkling, and John could not 
help them here ; except, indeed, by directing them to 
Jesus, as in these memorable words he did, " Behold 
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
world. 7 ' 

It is impossible to estimate too highly the signifi- 
cance of these words, or the place which, in a true 
scheme of Christian doctrine, they must assume. As 
the church understands them, they set forth our Lord 
in his central function and office, as the one perfect 
sacrifice ; they set forth the effectual operation of his 
sacrifice of Himself, as a bearing, and a bearing away, 
of the world's sin. They may therefore fitly constitute 
our starting-point from which to consider what the 
church's doctrine of the atonement, or of the sacrifice 
of the death of Christ, and of the consequences which 



158 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



follow thereupon, may be ; and this, with especial ref- 
erence to objections brought against this doctrine, as 
failing to commend itself to the conscience, as indeed 
outraging that sense of right, that revelation anterior 
to all other revelations, which God has planted in the 
heart ; as a doctrine therefore, which, however it may 
seem to be in Scripture, however a superficial inter- 
pretation of certain passages may favor this impression, 
it is impossible can be truly there. 

The gravity of the matter thus brought to issue none 
can deny, nor yet the very serious and far-reaching 
consequences which must follow, if, while the word 
1 sacrifice ' should indeed be left us, all wherein the es- 
sence of sacrifice consisted, as mainly its vicarious and 
satisfactory character, were to be exploded from the 
New Testament. One of the first of these consequences 
would be a loosening, that I say not a dissolution, of 
the bonds between the Old Testament and the New. 
There can be no question that in the Old, the doctrine 
of sacrifice, of the vicarious suffering of one for another, 
of satisfaction resulting thereupon, everywhere pre- 
vails. If there is nothing of this in the New, if this is 
Jewish only, and not Christian as well, if Christ, for 
instance, is only the Lamb of God because of his inno- 
cence and purity, and not because of his sacrificial 
death, if He takes away the sin of the world only in 
the way of summoning and enabling men to leave off 
their sins, all bonds between the New Testament, and 
at least the Levitical sacrifices of the Old, are broken. 
These last point to nothing. They are a huge husk 
without a kernel ; types without their antitype ; shad- 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



159 



ows, but not ' shadows of the true/ and thus with no 
substance following ; a promise without performance ; 
an elaborate and enormous machinery for the effecting 
of nothing. 

That which hitherto has ennobled those sacrifices in 
our eyes, was the truth which they foreshowed. Let 
them have foreshowed nothing of the kind, and they 
sink down at once to a level with the heathen sacrifices ; 
nay, not merely to a level with those, as those have 
hitherto been regarded by us, but they drag down to a 
far lower depth the heathen and themselves together. 
Hitherto the heathen sacrifices, hideous distortions of 
the true as they so often were, yet were not without a 
certain terrible grandeur of their own. A ray of the 
glory of Calvary fell upon them, and, dark as they re- 
mained, yet did not leave them altogether dark. They 
were blind feelings after the Cross of Christ, passionate 
outcries for it ; they were lies indeed, yet lies which 
cried after the truth. But take from Christ's Cross its 
character of an altar, and from his death its character 
of a sacrifice, and at once the Levitical sacrifices no 
longer remain as shadows of the true, and the heathen 
cease to be remote resemblances of the same. Let the 
doctrine of Christ's death as being a vicarious atone- 
ment and satisfaction be dismissed from the New Tes- 
tament, on the ground of its contradiction to the 
righteous moral instincts of humanity, and it is im- 
possible consistently to maintain the divine character 
of large portions of the Old. 

But let us a little consider what the objections are, 
which are now being made to the church's doctrine of 



160 CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 

the atonement, and what the answers which they seem 
to demand. And first, in regard to this discussion, it 
may be generally observed, that it is not sufficient to 
reply to these objections out of Scripture ; the very 
argument of the objectors being, that the meaning we 
attach to our Scripture proof cannot be the right one, 
revolting as it does that sense of righteousness and 
justice which is God's gift to men anterior to all other 
gifts, that earliest revelation of Himself which no later 
one can ever gainsay or set aside, but into harmony 
with which each later must be brought. We must seek 
our arguments elsewhere. We must endeavor first to 
show, — and confined within the narrow bounds of a 
single discourse, I shall limit myself to this, — how that 
truth, which we affirm, does not offend, but indeed 
commends itself to, the moral sense ; by manifestation 
of the truth commending ourselves and it to the con- 
sciences of men. 

The objection, then, as I take it, to Christ's vicarious 
offering, — for I will first deal with this, — to the as- 
sertion that He died not merely for the good of, but in 
the room and in the stead of, others, tasted death for 
them, commonly assumes this form. Must not right- 
eousness, it is asked, be the law of all God's dealings ? 
Most of all, must we not expect to find consistent with 
highest righteousness that which is the most solemn 
and awful of all G-od's dealings with his creatures? 
But how is it agreeable with this, how can it be called 
just, nay, how can it be acquitted of extremest injus- 
tice, to lay on one man the penalties of others, so that 
he pays the things which he never took, so that they 



CHRIST THE LAMS OF GOD. 



161 



sin and he is punished, on him being laid the iniquities 
of them all ? What have we here, an adversary will 
insist, but in the awfullest sphere of all, and in matters 
the most tremendous, the same injustice which, even in 
least things, provokes our indignation ; as, for instance, 
when some playfellow of a young prince is constituted, 
as we may sometimes have read of, to suffer the conse- 
quences of Ms idleness ; so that one neglects his tasks, 
and another is chastised ; one plays the truant, and 
another bears the smart ? 

But the case is not in point r and, since it has been 
started, it might be worth our while to make it in point, 
and then to consider whether it presents itself in any 
aspect so monstrous and absurd. To make it in point, 
the parts which the several persons sustain must, in the 
first place, be reversed. It must be that the young 
prince suffers for his humbler truant companions, not 
one of them for him ; it must be that he docs it, not of 
compulsion or constraint, but of his own free will ; it 
must be that only such an act as this would overcome 
their perversity and idleness ; that he offers himself to 
this correction, knowing that nothing else would over- 
come it, and that this would be effectual to do so. A 
submission with this knowledge to the punishment of 
their faults and negligences and shortcomings might 
be strange, even as all acts of condescending self- 
offering love are strange in a world of selfishness and 
pride ; but surely there would be nothing in it either 
monstrous or ridiculous. 

And exactly in the same way, when we hear it 
urged, How can it be righteous to lay on one man the 



162 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



penalties of others ? surely we must feel that the ques- 
tion, to be effectually answered, needs only to be more 
accurately put ; that the form which it ought to assume 
is this, How can it be righteous for one man to take 
upon himself the penalties of others? and none who 
remember the " Lo ! I come" of the Saviour, the willing 
sacrifice of our Isaac, prefigured by his who climbed 
so meekly in his father's company the hill of Moriah — 
none, I say, who remember this, will deny our right to 
make this change ; while surely the whole aspect of 
the question is now by this little change altered alto- 
gether. For how many an act of heroic self-sacrifice, 
which it would be most unrighteous for others to de- 
mand from, or to force on, one reluctant, which indeed 
would cease to be heroism or sacrifice at all, unless 
wholly self-imposed, is yet most glorious when one has 
freely offered himself thereunto ; is only not righteous, 
because it is so much better than righteous, because 
it moA^es in that higher region where law is no more 
known, but only known no more because it has been 
transfigured into love. Wherein else is the chief glory 
of history but in those deeds of self-devotion, of heroic 
self-offering, which, like trumpet tones sounding from 
the depths of the past, rouse us, at least for a while, 
from the selfish dream of life to a nobler existence ; and 
of which if the mention has become trite and common 
now, it has only become so because the grandeur of 
them has caused them to be evermore in the hearts and 
on the lips of men. 

Yicarious suffering, it is strange to hear the mighty 
uproar which is made about it ; when indeed in lower 



CHEIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



163 



forms. — not low in themselves, though, low as compared 
with the highest. — it is everywhere, where love is at 
all. For indeed is not this, of one freely taking on 
himself the consequences of others' faults, and thus 
averting from those others at least in part the penalties 
of the same, building what others have thrown down, 
gathering what others have scattered, bearing the bur- 
dens which others have wrapped together, healing the 
wounds which others have inflicted, paying the things 
which he never took, smarting for sins which he never 
committed ; is not this, I say, the law and the condition 
of all highest nobleness in the world ? is it not that 
which God is continually demanding of his elect, they 
approving themselves his elect, as they do not shrink 
from this demand, as they freely own themselves the 
debtors of love to the last penny of the requirements 
which it makes ? And if these things are so, shall we 
question the right of God Himself to display this no- 
bleness which He demands of his creatures? Shall 
we wish to rob Him of the opportunity, or think to 
honor Him who- is highest love, by denying Him the 
right to display it ? 

But the sufferings and death of Christ were not 
merely vicarious : they were also satisfactory • and 
thus atoning or setting at one, bringing together the 
Holy and the unholy, who could not have been recon- 
ciled in any other way. When we speak thus, we are 
sometimes taunted at the outset with the fact that the 
word ' satisfaction/' as applied to the death of Christ 
and its results, nowhere occurs in Scripture ; so be- 



164 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



longs to the later Latin theology, (Anselm being the 
first to employ it,) that the Greek theology does not 
so much as possess the word, — I mean of course any 
Greek equivalent for it. This is true ; but though the 
■word 1 satisfaction 7 is not in Scripture, the thing is 
everywhere there, and we are contending not about 
words, but things ; the idea of it is inherent in ransom, 
in redemption, in propitiation, in scriptural words and 
phrases and images out of number ; and just as in the 
Arian controversy, the church had a perfect right to 
the ' homoousion/ careless whether the word were in 
Scripture or no, so here to ' satisfaction/ seeing that 
this best expresses and sums up the truth which in this 
matter she holds. 

But, not to tarry longer with this objection at the 
threshold, how, it is further urged, could God be well 
pleased with the sufferings of the innocent and the 
holy ? What ' satisfaction/ since we will have this 
word, could He find in these ? Here, as so often, the 
faith of the church is first caricatured, that so it may 
be more easily brought into question. Could God 
have pleasure in the sufferings of the innocent and the 
holy, and that innocent and holy his own Son ? As- 
suredly not ; but He could have pleasure, nay, accord- 
ing to the moral necessities of his own being, He must 
have pleasure, yea, the highest joy, satisfaction, and 
delight in the love, the patience, the obedience, which 
those sufferings gave Him the opportunity of display- 
ing, which but for those He could never have dis- 
played ; above all, He must have rejoiced in these as 
manifested in his own Son. For even we ourselves, 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



165 



when we read in story of those who for the love of 
their fellows have made their lives one long patient 
martyrdom, or who, witnessing for the truth, have been 
borne from earth in the fire-chariot of some shorter 
but sharper agony, do we not feel that we have a right 
to rejoice in these martyrs of truth and love, yea, in 
the very pains and sufferings which they endured? 
that only as the nerves of our own moral being are 
weak and unstrung, only as we have become incapable 
not merely of doing, but even of appreciating, what is 
noble and great, do we grudge them those pains, do 
we wish for them one of these to have been less ; see- 
ing that these were the conditions of their greatness, 
that without which it could never have been shown, 
without which it might never have existed ? 

Even the heathen moralist could say of God in his 
dealings with good men, "fortiter amat." There is no 
weakness in his love ; it is love according to which 
He does not spare his own, but thrusts them forth to 
labor and difficulty and pains, in which alone they can 
be perfected ; even as the same heathen could affirm 
that God had joy in nobly suffering men ; not, of 
course, for the sufferings' sake, but for the virtues 
which were manifested therein. And should not the 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ have pleas- 
ure in the faith, the love, the obedience of his Son? 
Yea, it was a joy such as only the mind and heart of 
God could contain, that in his Son this perfect pattern 
of self-forgetting, self-offering love was displayed. We 
do not shrink from accepting in the simplest sense the 
assertion of the Apostle, that Christ, giving Himself 



166 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



for us on the Cross, became therein and thereby " a 
sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savor" unto God ; that 
He was well pleased therewith, and said at length 
what He would never else have said, " I have found a 
ransom." 

Christ satisfied herein, not the divine anger, but the 
divine craving and yearning after a perfect holiness, 
righteousness, and obedience in man, God's chosen 
creature, the first fruits of his creatures ; which crav- 
ing no man had satisfied, but all had disappointed, 
before. There had been a flaw in every other man's 
escutcheon ; every other, instead of repairing the 
breach which Adam had made, had himself left that 
breach wider than he found it. But here at length 
was one, a son of man, yet fairer than all the children 
of men, one on whom the Father's love could rest with 
a perfect complacency, in regard of whom He could 
declare, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased," in whom He had pleasure without stint and 
without drawback. And that life of his, the long self- 
offering of that life of love, was crowned, consummated, 
and perfected by the sacrifice of his death, wherein He 
satisfied to the uttermost every demand which God 
could make on Him, and satisfied for all the demands 
which God had made upon all the other children of 
men, and which they had not satisfied for themselves. 

But if the question is here asked, How could one 
man satisfy for many? how by one man's obedience 
could many be made righteous ? the answer is not far 
to seek. The trandscendent worth of that obedience 
which Christ rendered, of that oblation which He 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



167 



offered, the power which it possessed of countervailing 
and more than counterbalancing a world's sin, lay in 
this, that He who offered these, while He bore a human 
nature, and wrought human acts, was a Divine person ; 
not indeed God alone, for as such He would never 
have been in the condition to offer or to die ; nor man 
alone, for then the worth of his offering could never 
have reached so far ; but that He was God and man 
in one person indissolubly united, and in this person 
performing all those acts, man that He might obey and 
suffer and die, God that He might add to every act of 
his obedience, his suffering, his death, an immeasurable 
worth, steeping in the glory of his divine personality 
all of human that He wrought. Christ was able so 
summarily to pay our debt, because He had another 
and a higher coin in which to pay it than that in which 
it was contracted. It was contracted in the currency 
of earth ; He paid it in the currency of heaven. Nor 
was it, as some among the schoolmen of the middle 
ages taught, that God arbitrarily ascribed and imputed 
to Christ's obedience unto death a value which made 
it equal to the needs and sins of the world, such a 
value as it would not have had but for this imputation. 
We affirm rather with the deeper theologians of those 
and of all times, who crave to deal with realities, not 
with ascriptions and imputations, that his offering had 
in itself this intrinsic value, that there was no ascrip- 
tion to it, as of God's mere pleasure, of a value which 
it did not in itself possess ; for then the same might 
have been imputed to the work of an angel or of a 
saint ; the whole exclusive fitness of, the Son of God 



168 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



undertaking the work would then pass away ; and 
another might have made up the breach as well as He. 
We affirm rather that what the Son of God claimed 
in behalf of that race whereof He had become the rep- 
resentative and the Head, He claimed as of right, 
although, indeed, that right was one which the Father 
as joyfully conceded as the Son demanded. Without 
a satisfaction such as this, the eternal interests of that 
righteousness whereof God is the upholder in his own 
moral universe would not have permitted Him to be, 
as He now is, the passer-by of transgression, the jus- 
tifier and accepter of the ungodly. 

Such, my brethren, is the church's faith in respect of 
the atonement. That atonement is not, as some would 
persuade us, a one-sided act ; it looks not one way 
only, but two ; having a face with which it looks to- 
ward God, as well as one with which it looks toward 
man. It is no mere reconciling of man to God, as 
though its object were to remove the distrust, to kill 
the enmity in man's heart, to persuade him to throw 
down his arms, and yield himself the vanquished of 
eternal love. It is most truly this, but it is much more 
than this. It is a reconciling not merely of man to 
God, but of God to man ; whose love could not have 
gone forth upon the children of men in its highest 
forms, in those of forgiveness, acceptance, renewal, if 
this had not found place. Think not, then, my breth- 
ren, of Christ the peace?wa/ter as though He came 
only to announce peace, to say to the doubting and 
distrustful children of men, Why will ye remain at 
such a miserable and guilty distance from your Heav- 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



169 



enly Father, when his arms are stretched out to receive 
you, when He is only waiting to enfold you within 
them ? No doubt Christ did come bringing this mes- 
sage, did proclaim that those arms were open, and that 
Heavenly Father waiting to be gracious ; but He only 
brought this message inasmuch as He made the peace 
which He announced. " Having made peace by the 
blood of his Cross," " He entered into the Holiest of 
all, having obtained eternal redemption for us." In 
Him and through Him, through the sacrifice of his 
death, the disturbed, and in part suspended, relations 
between God and his sinful creatures were reconsti- 
tuted anew ; his blood being shed to cleanse men from 
their sins, and not to teach them that those sins needed 
no cleansing, and could be forgiven without one. 

And will any faith which is short of this faith satisfy 
the deepest needs and cravings of your souls ? You 
may struggle against it with your understandings ; 
though, I think, very needlessly ; for it seems to me to 
approve itself to the reason and the conscience, quite 
as much as to demand acceptance of our faith ; but you 
will crave it with your inmost spirits. There are times 
when, perhaps, nothing short of this will save you from 
the darkness of a hopeless despair. Let me imagine, 
for example, one, who with many capacities for a no- 
bler and purer life, and many calls thereunto, has yet 
suffered himself to be entangled in youthful lusts, has 
stained himself with these ; and then after awhile 
awaken 5 , or rather is awakened by the good Spirit of 
God, to ask himself, What have I done? How fares 
it with him at the retrospect then, when he, not wholly 
8 



170 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



laid waste in spirit, is made to possess (oh, fearful pos- 
session !) the sins of his youth ? Like a stricken deer, 
though none but himself may "be conscious of his 
wound, he wanders away from his fellows ; or if with 
them, he is alone among them, for he is brooding still 
and ever on the awful mystery of evil, which he now 
too nearly knows. And now too all purity, the fearful 
innocence of children, the holy love of sister and of 
mother, and the love which he had once dreamed of as 
better even than these, with all which is supremely fair 
in nature or in art, comes to him with a shock of pain, 
is fraught with an infinite sadness ; for it wakens up 
in him by contrast a livelier sense of what he is, and 
what, as it seems, he must for ever be ; it reminds him 
of a Paradise for ever lost, the angel of God's anger 
guarding with a fiery sword its entrance against him. 
He tries by a thousand devices to still, or at least to 
deaden, the undying pain of his spirit. What is this 
word sin, that it should torment him so ? He will tear 
away the conscience of it, this poisonous shirt of Nes- 
sus, eating into his soul, which in a heedless moment 
he has put on. But no ; he can tear away his own 
flesh, but he cannot tear away that. Go where he 
may, he still carries with him the barbed shaft which 
has pierced him ; " hasret lateri letalis arundo." The 
arrow which drinks up his spirit, there is no sovereign 
dittany which will cause it to drop from his side — 
none, that is, which grows on earth ; but there is, 
which grows in heaven, and in the church of Christ, 
the heavenly enclosure here. 

And you too — if such a one as I have pictured should 



CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD. 



171 



be among us to-day — you too may find your peace, you 
will find it, when you learn to look by faith on Him, 
" the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the 
world." 'You will carry, it may be, the scars of 
those wounds which you have inflicted upon yourself 
to your grave ; but the wounds themselves, He can 
heal them, and heal them altogether. He can give 
you back the years which the cankerworm has eaten, 
the peace which your sin had chased away, and, as it 
seemed to you, for ever. He can do so, and will. 
" Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean ; wash 
me, and I shall be whiter than snow ; " this will be 
then your prayer, and this your prayer will be fulfilled. 
The blood of sprinkling will purge, and you will feel 
yourself clean. Your sin will no longer be yourself ; 
you will be able to look at it as separated from you, 
as laid upon another, upon One so strong that He did 
but for a moment stagger under the weight of a world's 
sin, and then so bore, that bearing He has borne it 
away for ever. 



SERMON XVI. 



THE KEYS OF DE&TH AND OF HELL. 

And He laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not ; I am 
the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and be- 
hold, I am alive for evermore, Amen : and have the keys of hell and 
of death. — Rev. i. 17, 18. 

GLORIOUS things are spoken of the City of God ; 
but of the Son of God, as might justly be expected, 
things are spoken which are far more glorious still ; 
nor does He, the King of Glory, shrink from speaking 
these glorious things of Himself. And yet I know not 
whether, amid all the magnificent titles which He 
bears, there is any title, any blazon, any style more 
magnificent than this of my text, " I am He that liveth, 
and was dead ; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, 
Amen ; and have the keys of death and of hell " (for 
that, and not " of hell and of death," is the true order 
of the words, as in the best copies of the Greek). But 
whether there be, or be not, loftier dignities even than 
this, I am sure that there are none which would better 
become, few that would become so well, the joyful 
solemnities of this Easter morn. For here we have 
the glory of Christ, not as He is God, and as such is 
the Life, the Fountain of Life, for all created things ; 

(172) 



THE KEYS OF DEATH AND OF HELL. 173 

by whom and in whom they live and move and have 
their being : but Christ as He is the Resurrection and 
the Life, as He is Life in conflict with death, and over- 
coming it, as He is Life, swallowing up death in vic- 
tory, — Christ, therefore, as He is Man (for only man 
could die) ; and yet as Man, as the son of Man, tri- 
umphing over death and hell and all the powers of the 
grave ; having burst their bonds asunder, because it 
was impossible for Him to be holden by them ; and 
now having risen to the power of an endless life, death 
having no more dominion over Him. " I am He that 
liveth " — this much He might have said as God ; but 
this was not all which we, the dying children of men, 
who dwell in houses of clay which the moth crushes, 
who shall presently lie down in our graves, and make 
the worm our bedfellow there, require. The tidings 
are far more glorious, infinitely more blessed, than 
this ; for they are these, and tell of death overcome, 
of the grave giving back its prey : "I am He that 
liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I am alive for 
evermore." 

And yet it is not this portion of my text which I pro 
pose mainly to dwell on to-day ; but rather on the 
words which immediately follow, " and have the keys 
of death and of hell." But here, before proceeding- 
farther, and as something necessary for the understand- 
ing of this proclamation, let me remind you that our 
English word ' hell ' is used in two very different senses 
in the authorized Version of the New Testament, and 
is the rendering of two very different words, now of 
one, and now of the other. Sometimes it stands for 



174 THE KEYS OF DEATH AND OF HELL. 

the place of torment, Gehenna, which word ' Gehenna 7 
we have in a measure adopted into our own tongue ; 
sometimes ' hell ' is the translation of another word, 
namely, ' Hades/ which has also found a certain meas- 
ure of acceptance with us ; and ' hell 1 then means the 
whole invisible world, whither the spirits of all men, 
after they are delivered from the burden of flesh, 
of good men and bad alike, are gathered, waiting 
there the judgment of the great day ; the good waiting 
their perfect consummation and bliss, and the bad that 
dreadful hour when, body and soul being reunited once 
more, they shall receive in their bodies and in their 
souls the due reward of their deeds. Now, in the pas- 
sage before us, it is this last, this Hades, the world of 
the unseen, the world beyond the grave, which Christ 
claims for his own, over which He has obtained domin- 
ion, of which He holds the key ; that key being the 
sign and token of his dominion ; so that, holding that 
key, He can open, and no man can shut ; He can shut, 
and no man can open. 

A far more august dominion this, than if He had 
claimed to have the key of ' hell ' in our common and 
narrower acceptation of the word, that is, of Gehenna, 
the pit ; to be the jailer of that dark prison-house and 
miserable abode of the lost. ' Hell/ in the last sense 
of the word, is only a little obscure corner of the im- 
measurable dominion which is his. Not Gehenna 
merely, but Hades, the unknown, mysterious, invisible 
world, lying beyond our ken, almost beyond our guess, 
a world so near us, and yet so unimaginable by us, it 
is in all its extent a province of his empire. Not 



THE KEYS OF DEATH AND OF HELL. 



175 



merely as He is God. — for this of course, and this from 
everlasting —but through the grave and gate of death 
He as a man, and as our forerunner, entered into this 
Hades. — " vent down/"' as we say in the Apostles'* 
Creed, £i into hell;" preached .there, as St. Peter de- 
clares, to the spirits in prison. Seeming to be Himself 
a prisoner there, He was vet the breaker of the prison, 
first for Himself, and then for a multitude besides. 
Smiting the bars of iron asunder, He returned to the 
light of day ; the wearer of that triple crown which 
another has blasphemously assumed ; the wearer of it, 
because He was the winner of it, and because He was 
henceforward the Lord of heaven and of earth and of 
hell ; so that at his name, at the name of Jesus, that is, 
the human name of the Lord, every knee should bow, 
of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things 
under the earth. 

Such, my brethren, is the style, such are the dignities 
of the Prince of Life, who. having Himself tasted death, 
and gone down into hell, and having overcome death, 
and burst the gates of hell, henceforward wears at his 
girdle the keys of both, in token of his supreme author- 
ity over both. 

Let us pause here, and ask, What this is to us ? how 
it concerns us ? what Easter lessons we, considering 
these words, may take with us home this day ? 

And first, Christ has the key of death. Our times 
are in his hands. He measures out to us the hand- 
breadth of our life, longer or shorter as it may be. 
We do not die at random. The thread of our days is 
not cut short by the shears of a malignant fate, is not 



176 THE KEYS OF DEATH AXD OF HELL. 

snapped as by chance, or by the blind walk of mortal 
accident. There is no chance, no haphazard here ; 
but we live so long as Christ wills, and we die exactly 
when Christ wills. Life and death are his ; and if we 
are his, then what is his is also ours, and life and death 
are ours also. Oh, comfortable thought for those that 
are Christ's ! It is appointed unto them, as unto all, 
once to die ; but they die at the right time. They are 
taken from the evil to come ; or when they are at their 
best ; or when God has no more work for them here 
to do ; or when they may glorify Him more by their 
deaths than by their lives. How often God's saints 
and servants seem to us to die at the wrong moment ; 
too early, when they were greatly needed, for not half, 
not a tithe of their work was done ; or too late, when 
they seem to have overlived themselves, and nothing but 
the dull, dead ashes of what once they were to survive ; 
or in some other way to have missed the fittest oppor- 
tunity. So to us, in our short-sighted vision, it may 
appear ; but it never is really so. As grace had the 
ordering of all the rest of their lives, so of this its 
most serious concluding act. Christ has the key of 
death, He, that is, who is at once the highest Wisdom, 
the highest Power, and the highest Love ; He will not 
then turn that key till the fittest moment has come. 

But if this is a comfortable thought for those who love 
and serve Christ, it is a thought of terror and dismay 
for the careless and the disobedient. Their times also 
are in his hands. To the proudest, boldest sinner He 
can say, and does say, Thus far shalt thou go, and no 
further ; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed. 



THE KEYS OF DEATH AND OF HELL. 177 

He sets them their bounds which they cannot pass. 
Where is he, perhaps he is among us this morning, the 
secure sinner, who is counting his life his own ; who 
is laying out far-stretching plans for the future ; who 
is saying to his soul, " Soul, thou hast much goods laid 
up for many years ; eat, drink, and be merry who is 
counting that as he lias lived in neglect or defiance of 
God's laws, so he may live in neglect and defiance of 
them still, and that no evil will overtake him ? Shall 
it be so indeed ? God's judgment may be far above 
out of his sight, but Christ, whom he is defying, has 
the key of death. One turn of that key, and how will 
it be with him ? What if the decree should go forth 
against him, "This night shall thy soul be required 
of thee " ? He may have borne it hitherto with a high 
hand against God, but will he do so any more ? What 
will resistance profit him, when God changes his coun- 
tenance and sends him away ? Lay this, then, to heart, 
I beseech you, that Christ is the Lord of the spirits of 
all flesh, that He kills and makes alive, that He has 
the key of death, and that those who love Him, and 
those who hate Him, shall alike find this to be true. 

But He has another key, the key of hell, or of Hades. 
He orders, that is, not merely the time of our depar- 
ture out of this world, but the whole manner of our 
existence in another ; in that world into which at death 
we pass, and in which we remain until the judgment 
of the great day. This too is a most comfortable 
thought, that He will be with his people there. For 
that state of existence into which we are ushered when 
we leave this warm tenement of clay and all this famil- 
8* 



178 THE KEYS OF DEATH AND OF HELL. 

iar world, that land without form and void, what a 
dim mysterious terror broods over it for us. Millions 
and millions of the children of men have travelled to 
it, and yet for us it is the same undiscovered country 
which it was before one child of Adam had girded 
himself up for that, his longest journey and his last ; 
for of all these millions who have gone to it none have 
returned ; or if one or two have come back, a Lazarus, 
or a little maiden, after briefest sojourn on the fron- 
tiers and outer confines of that land, their finger has 
been upon their lips ; those lips have been sealed ; 
and, even if they knew, they have not told us anything 
of the secrets which lie beyond the grave. That invis- 
ible world which is so near us, is still divided from us 
by a curtain which none has lifted ; and we are left 
dimly and darkly guessing at all which is beyond. 
And yet, though we know no more of that mysterious 
kingdom than Adam knew when as yet his firstborn 
had not died, we have strong comfort in this, that One 
there is who does know, who has gone down into that 
strange, and for us unimaginable world, only peopled 
with the forms of our fear ; who has returned from it, 
and who says to them who must descend thither as He 
descended, Fear not ; I have the keys of that invisible 
world ; I have been Myself before you through it ; I 
will be with you in it ; my rod and my staff shall com- 
fort you there. 

And then He goes on to say, I open, and no man 
can shut ; I shut, and no man can open ;* these also 

* Rev. iii. 7. 



THE KEYS OF DEATH AND OF HELL. 179 

words of joy for believing souls, though words of ter- 
ror and despair for the impenitent and unbelieving. 
Thus He opened Paradise to the penitent thief. For 
Paradise, which is not heaven, but rather the blissful 
waiting-place of happy souls, as yet not having received 
their perfect consummation and bliss, this, a part of 
Hades, is included in it. It was to this that Christ 7 s 
own soul descended, while his body lay in the grave. 
He knew that He should have the key of it, that He 
could open it and none could shut, when, in reply to 
that word of faith, " Lord, remember me when Thou 
comest in thy kingdom," He made that confident an- 
swer, " This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." 
And as He opened it to that poor penitent malefactor, 
so to Zacchaeus the publican, when He declared, " This 
day is salvation come to this house ;" and so to that 
woman who had been a sinner, when He said unto her, 
" Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace." There 
were indeed many that would gladly have shut the 
door against these ; proud, self-righteous Pharisees, 
who marvelled and who murmured that Christ was 
gone to lodge with sinners, or that He suffered such to 
touch Him, and who would have fain reversed the sen- 
tence of his grace. But when He opens, none can shut. 
His is the power of the keys. Men may mistake ; 
they may make sad the soul which He has not made 
sad ; they may retain the sins which He has remitted ; 
but then his sentence shall stand, and not theirs. Or, 
worse than mistaking, they may grudge the grace ex- 
tended to others ; but while, thus grudging, they may 
shut the kingdom against themselves, they cannot shut 



180 THE KEYS OP DEATH AND OF HELL. 

it against the objects of his grace. For the keys of 
the invisible world, of Paradise, which is the outer 
chamber and vestibule of heaven, and of heaven itself, 
are in his hands. If He be on thy side, thou peni- 
tent soul, fear not, though all the world be against 
thee. If He absolves, who shall condemn thee. Shall 
the world ? its mouth shall be stopped. Or Satan ? 
that accuser of the brethren is cast out. Or thine own 
conscience? He has spoken peace to it, and thou 
wilt forgive thyself when thou knowest thou art for- 
given of Him. Or the things written in the book 
against thee ? the red line of his blood has been drawn 
across that page of the book in which thy sins had 
been recorded, and has cancelled the writing there • 
and instead of the bitter things of that book, thy name 
shall be found written in another, even in the Lamb's 
book of life. When He opens to thee, none can 
shut. 

But it is also true, that when He shuts none can 
open. When He shuts heaven, none can force their 
way into it • when He shuts hell, none can force their 
way out of it. Wilt thou take heaven by violence? 
There is a violence by which it is taken, the violence 
of prayers and tears ; but all other violence is in vain. 
Wilt thou take it in thine own way, and not in God's ; 
seeking to establish thine own righteousness, and not 
accepting the righteousness of Christ, thinking to force 
thy way into the kingdom by some self-willed efforts, 
self-chosen services of thine own, to enter the sheephold 
not by the door, but climbing up, a thief and a robber, 
by some other way ? In vain. No man cometh to the 



THE KEYS OF DEATH AND OF HELL. 181 

Father but by the Son. What He shuts against thee 
none can open. And, ah ! it is also true, and I dare not 
leave it unsaid, if thou shouldst provoke Him to the 
uttermost, and He should once shut upon thee the gates 
of the dark prison-house, thou wilt be bound there by 
everlasting chains ; for the gates, be they of heaven or 
of hell, which He shuts no other can ever open. 



SERMON XVII. 



SCRIPTURE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER. 

Search the Scriptures. — John v. 39. 

U CjEARCH the Scriptures," this is the commandment 



of Christ our Lord. " Do not search the Scrip- 
tures ; you know not what mischiefs will befall you if 
you do," this is the commandment of that church which 
exalts herself as the only faithful guardian of Christ's 
words and authoritative interpreter of his will. For 
indeed the church of Rome, as is sufficiently familiar 
to us all, has been ever wont to magnify the difficulties 
and obscurities which are to be found in the Scriptures, 
to exaggerate these to the uttermost. She has spoken 
of the Word of God as though it was a labyrinth in 
which men, venturing without her clue, would be sure 
to lose themselves ; a two-edged sword, which they who 
dared to wield for themselves would not fail to wield 
to their own hurt and harm ; a dead skeleton, until 
she had breathed into it the breath of life. And many 
other things she has spoken concerning Scripture, or 
suffered her children to speak unrebuked, dishonorable 
to its authority, its sufficiency, its perfection. 

Nor is the motive which has induced her to utter 
such words of disparagement hard to discover. The 
intention, indeed, is obvious, — to deter the faithful 



(182) 



SCRIPTUEE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER.' 183 



from the independent study of the Word of God ; a 
study which would be little likely to prove favorable 
to her pretensions ; and further, to drive men in de- 
spair of any secure guidance to be found elsewhere, 
into the arms of an infallible church. 

But we, my brethren, who would fain believe that 
the Scripture is not the most unsafe, but the safest, 
study in the world, we gladly fall back on this word 
of Christ ; and resting upon it and other like words, 
as, for instance, on St. Paul's declaration that all Scrip- 
tures " were written for our learning," we are sure that 
the Bible cannot be any such ambiguous, dark, and 
dangerous a book ; but one in the main plain and clear ; 
a manual of instruction for heaven, which they who 
consult, though they be wayfaring men, unlearned and 
unlettered, shall not err therein. Asserting this, we 
do not mean in the least to deny that in Holy Scripture 
are deep things and hard things, places beyond our 
depth, or even our sounding, mysteries which are and 
will remain unfathomed to the end ; but only that the 
things needful for life and godliness are perspicuous 
and clear, the great truths by which men live are plain ; 
that the difficulties which men sometimes find in regard 
of these, and which have hindered some from coming 
to a clear consent with the great body of faithful men 
in respect of these, are oftener moral than intellectual, 
born rather in the region of the heart than in that of 
the understanding. 

And as from these declarations of Christ and his 
Apostles we assert what our Reformers were wont to 
call the perspicuity of Scripture, so also, in contradic- 



184 SCEIPTURE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER. 

tion to the Roman teaching, we hold that it, being the 
Word of God, can receive no law of interpretation 
from aught above it, being itself above all. "We regard 
it, not as a treasure of which another has the key, but 
itself as treasure, and key to the treasure, both in one. 
Scripture is its own best and most legitimate interpre- 
ter. You observe, I do not say, and the church of 
England has never said, that the interpretation of 
Scripture is to be sought only from itself; for this, 
which some have taught, is the pushing of a truth into 
an error ; and so the whole past experience of the 
church, and the whole weight of the creeds, and the 
accumulated wisdom of all the holy and good men who 
have occupied themselves with its study, would be 
slighted and disallowed. Receiving a law only from 
itself, it gladly receives secondary helps for its under- 
standing from every quarter which can yield them ; 
and they are proud and little likely to come to the 
knowledge of the truth, nay, sure to miss it, who in so 
serious and solemn a matter, and in a vain conceit of 
their own powers, despise these helps. At the same 
time, this does not alter the fact that in every case the 
ultimate tribunal to which appeal must be made is the 
Scripture itself, and not any authority outside of the 
Scripture. It is its own best and most legitimate in- 
terpreter. 

But is not this absurd? the objectors urge. Must 
there not be somewhere a living interpreter to resolve 
its doubts, to lead into its truth (which indeed there 
must, though not that one whom they intend) ? How 
can men left to themselves ever come to any certainty 



SCRIPTURE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER. 185 

about its meaning, abounding as it does, even accord- 
ing to your own admission, with places obscure, per- 
plexed, and difficult, with many things most hard to be 
understood ? And then they go on to demand, Is not 
every past heresy, professing as it has done to build 
upon Scripture, every past misinterpretation of the 
Word into which men have fallen, a witness and a 
warning of what must inevitably follow when men are 
turned loose upon the Scripture, to wander at random 
there ? 

To the first objection a reply has already implicitly 
been made. While we freely admit the partial obscu- 
rity of Scripture, we do not the less constantly affirm 
that it employs such plainness of speech in regard of 
all necessary truth, that a simple man seeking and 
using such helps as he would be guilty of pride and 
presumption if he did not seek and use, would assuredly 
gather it therefrom. 

And if we are further asked, In what way have those 
who admitted no authority superior to the Word itself 
— our Reformers, for instance — dealt, or in what way 
did the early Fathers, — who only did not refute be- 
cause they had never so much as heard of the preten- 
sions of Rome, — deal with those avowedly more diffi- 
cult and obscurer portions of the Word, for the pur- 
pose of reaching their meaning ? our answer is this. 
Having obtained a secure starting-place in those pas- 
sages which are plain and clear and lifted above all 
doubts, and walking in the light of these, they found 
them to lend of their own clearness to many others, 
which would without them have remained more or less 



186 SCRIPTURE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER. 

obscure ; just as one diamond, cut and polished, serves 
in turn to cut and polish others. Or, to use another 
image, from these plainest passages, as from an im- 
pregnable citadel, the interpreter would go forth to 
the subdual of those which, without presenting exactly 
the same perfect plainness, yet did not offer any seri- 
ous resistance ; which having overcome, he would enlist 
them too in his own ranks, range them in their place 
and order there, and then advance as with larger num- 
bers, an army swollen by these successes, to the subdual 
of those which presented a still stronger front of resist- 
ance ; thus ever enlarging the circle of his knowledge, 
like a conqueror who uses the nations which he has 
conquered that by their help he may in turn conquer 
others.* For him duly equipped for his work, so 
searching the Scripture, and ever using it as a key to 
unlock its own treasures, there will remain in the end 
only those few passages unexplained, which probably 
always will so remain, will survive, like untaken for- 
tresses, in perpetual witness that this Word of God is 
higher, deeper, larger, than every intellect of man. 

In other words, Scripture is to be interpreted ac- 
cording to the analogy of faith. But what, it may be 
asked, do we exactly mean by this phrase, drawn no 
doubt originally from Romans xii. 6, where St. Paul 
lays down the rule, that if a man prophesy, expound, 
that is, the Word, he shall do it " according to the 
analogy! 1 or, as we have it, " according to the propor- 

* Augustine (De Bod. Christ, ii. 14) : Ad obscuras locutiones illus- 
trandas de manifestioribus sumantur exempla, et qusedam certarum 
sententiarum testimonia dubitationem incertis auferant. 



SCRIPTURE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER. 187 

tion of faitli " ? Let his prophesying or preaching be 
in conformity with the received rule of faith, in agree- 
ment with the things otherwise and already received 
by faithful men. Every part of Scripture, St. Paul 
would say, must be so explained as to place it in har- 
mony and agreement with the great body of truth 
drawn from the other parts ; faith meaning here, not 
an inward quality and activity which God works by 
his Spirit in the hearts of men, but the faith, the sum 
total of the truths once delivered to us, which, as de- 
livered by God, are the rightful object of our faith. 

I will illustrate what is meant by the analogy, or 
proportion, of faith, and the safety of interpreting 
Scripture in conformity to it, by one or two examples. 

Our Lord has in one place said, speaking of the day 
of his own return to judgment : " Of that day and hour 
knoweth no man ; no, not the angels which are in 
heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."* These words, 
" neither the Son, but the Father," if taken alone and 
without the corrective of other passages, might appear 
to favor the doctrine of those who hold that the Son 
is not God in any such sense as the Father, as not pos- 
sessing the same divine attribute of omniscience with 
the Father ; and this text was, as we know, the main 
stay of these heretics of old, their stronghold, as they 
deemed it. But seeing there are other Scriptures far 
more numerous, far more explicit, not mere conse- 
quences and deductions, as is the Arian conclusion 
from his text, but distinct declarations of the Son's 



* Mark xiii. 32. 



188 SCRIPTURE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER. 

equality in all things with the Father, it is plain that 
this one Scripture must be subordinated to, and must 
receive its law from, those many, and not, on the con- 
trary, those many from this one ; that distinct asser- 
tions must stand their ground against more or less 
remote deductions, however it may seem to some that 
these last necessarily follow from this or other Scrip- 
tures which they plead. 

Take another illustration. The precept of St. Paul 
is familiar to us all : "If thine enemy hunger, feed 
him ; if he thirst, give him drink ; for in so doing thou 
shalt heap coals of fire on his head."* It is familiar 
also no doubt to some among us, how these last words, 
" thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head," have been 
explained ; that is, Thou shalt, through his continued 
obduracy and obstinate rejection of thy proffered love, 
draw down at last heaviest judgment, even as coals of 
fire to scorch and consume him, on his head. But the 
analogy of faith at once forbids any such explanation 
as this. All will admit that the pervading, the con- 
stant teaching of the New Testament is, Love thine 
enemy, do him all the good which thou canst. But 
this precept of St. Paul, interpreted as above, would 
not be, Love him ; it would be, Under the semblance 
of love seek to do him all the hurt which thou canst. 
Paul would, in fact, be teaching us, not how best to 
love, and loving to win back, an estranged brother, 
but how to hate him more artificially and effectually 
than the common haters of this world. Seeing, then, 



* Rom. xil 20. 



. SCRIPTURE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER. 189 

that such an explanation would set this passage in op- 
position with that which is on all sides acknowledged 
to be the teaching of the Gospel of Christ, it cannot 
be the right one. Of one thing we are sure, that 
whatever St. Paul may have meant, he did not mean 
this. The precept must be a counsel of love, and not 
a counsel of hate. With this foregone conclusion we 
come to the consideration of it, and no explanation 
can demand our assent which issues in any other re- 
sult. 

We are fully authorized in thus refusing our assent. 
Even in the interpretation of human writings, we pre- 
sume unity, and do not willingly believe in respect of 
any great writer or thinker that statements of his are 
irreconcilable one with another. We are hardly per- 
suaded to accept such an explanation of any one pas- 
sage as would set it in contradiction with what he has 
constantly affirmed elsewhere. And yet it is always 
possible that there may be here not merely apparent, 
but real, contradiction. The intellect of man is lim- 
ited 5 the truths which are above its horizon at one 
time may be below it at another ; not to speak of in- 
numerable infirmities which cleave to it. We do not, 
therefore, absolutely demand of an expositor so to 
interpret his author that every part of his writings 
shall be in perfect agreement with every other. 

But this self-contradiction, which is possible for man, 
is impossible for that Holy Spirit who is the author of 
this Book. All things there being true, are not merely 
true, but are true together ; and the interpretation, if 
one may so speak, must be panharmonic, that only 



190 SCRIPTURE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER. 

being the meaning of any one part of Scripture which 
consents with the meaning of all. In the recognition 
of this rule, and in the observance of it, there is that 
which will, under God, evermore save us from those 
perils and mischiefs with which Rome threatens us, if 
we presume to go forth seeking the meaning of Scrip- 
ture otherwise than under her infallible guidance. 

And when she points to the many who have wrested 
God's Word to their harm, have missed its true mean- 
ing, and built on their own erroneous interpretation 
of it huge systems of error, to their own loss and that 
of many more, admitting this, what argument is there 
here, we ask, for withholding the Scriptures from all ? 
Men have rashly committed themselves to the seas and 
been drowned. Shall none therefore go forth in ships ? 
Men have wounded themselves with their own weap- 
ons. Shall a whole nation therefore be disarmed, and 
lie naked and defenceless in the presence of its foes ? 
We do not deny that there are dangers here, as every- 
where else. There is a trial linked with all other of 
God's gifts ; why should there not be a trial linked 
with this, one of the very choicest and the best ? Men 
may wrest Scripture to their harm, abusing even this 
excellent gift of God ; while yet, be it remembered 
ever, the root of the mischief will have lain for them, 
not in the weakness of the intellectual, but in some 
perversity of the moral, nature. God has set so close 
and mysterious a connection between the conclusions 
of the intellect and the desires of the heart, the dark- 
ened heart is so sure to issue in the darkened under- 
standing, men are so prepared to believe what they 



SCRIPTURE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER. 191 

wish to believe, that it is nothing strange if oftentimes 
they err concerning Scripture, and read other things 
in it than those which the Spirit of God has written. 
Nor, continuing morally what they are, would they have 
been a whit nearer to the kingdom of heaven, if, instead 
of being searchers for themselves, they had been the 
passive recipients from others of the most correct body 
of doctrine ready made to their hands. Not in this 
would their help have lain ; but in the purifying of 
the heart, and so of the understanding, through the 
unfeigned love of the truth. 

" Search the Scriptures," — this then is a precept of 
Christ's which we need not fear to obey ; from obedi- 
ence to which we need not be deterred by any confi- 
dent assurances of men that the fruits which hang 
upon the branches of this tree of life are too high for 
us to reach ; or that for us, rashly stretching out our 
hand and gathering them, they shall not be fruit of a 
tree of life at all. Grant that of this fruit some may 
hang, as no doubt it does, on the topmost branches 
where we cannot attain to it ; still there is precious 
fruit in abundance on the lower branches, hanging 
within the reach of all, which all may gather who will. 
As little need we be scared by the threat, that, rashly 
plucking, we may be plucking not life for ourselves, 
but death. We know the meaning of these threaten- 
ings ; we know in what interest they are spoken ; and 
knowing this, we know that there is nothing in them 
which need make us afraid. Be assured, that for one 
who has perished through reading the Scriptures amiss, 
nourishing from them a proud perverse humor of his 



192 SCRIPTURE ITS OWN BEST INTERPRETER. 

own, a thousand, ten thousand have perished through 
not reading them at all. And there, in that not read- 
ing them at all, or at any rate not searching them at 
all, your far more real clanger lies. The stone has 
been rolled away that stopped these walls of salvation 
so long ; but yet do not, I would beseech you, forget 
that your carelessness, your indifference, your sin, may 
as effectually, and far more guiltily, close them for you 
than ever a tyrannous hierarchy closed them for your 
fathers. We boast of an open Bible ; but what were 
so sad, what would involve so great a guilt, as a Bible 
which is at the same time open and unread ? 



SERMON XVIII. 



Elijah's translation and Christ's ascension. 

And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, 
there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them 
both asunder ; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. — 
2 Kings ii. 11. 

2l0cen0ion Dag. 

INHERE is nothing altogether abrupt, unprepared, 
. wholly unlike every thing which went before it, in 
the New Testament. There are almost none of the 
leading events of our Lord's life that have not their 
nearer or remoter analogies and parallels in the lives 
of some one or other of the Old Testament saints ; 
God in this way testifying that He is the author of 
both Covenants ; one purpose, one scheme, one inten- 
tion running through them both, knitting them togeth- 
er, so that it is impossible to detach them from one 
another, to ascribe divine authority to the one, and at 
the same time to withhold it from the other. To give 
an instance of what I mean : there is an anticipation, 
a feeble one indeed, but still an anticipation, of the 
Transfiguration of Christ in the skin of Moses' face 
shining, as he also came down from the mountain 
where he had been talking with God * The glory, 



* Exod. xxxiv. 29. 
9 (193) 



194 



Elijah's translation 



indeed, of Moses' transfiguration, if we may call it by 
so august a name, was infinitely less than the glory of 
Christ's ; but this only agreed with the relative position 
of the two — Moses a servant in the house of another, 
Christ a Son in his own. 

Not otherwise the Ascension of the Lord, which we 
celebrate to-day. was prefigured, foreshown, and, we 
may say, anticipated in part, by the translation of 
Elijah ; and the church has marked her sense of the 
inner connexion in which the two events stand to one 
another by appointing the chapter from which my text 
is drawn, the chapter which records the fact and the 
manner of Elijah's taking up into heaven as one of the 
lessons to be read in the services appointed for to-day. 
We may expect to find, in comparing the two narra- 
tives, points of likeness, and points of difference : 
points of likeness, for the kingdom of God is one, one 
through all ages ; its leading events, therefore, will re- 
peat themselves again and again : points of difference, 
because there is growth in it, advance, development : 
the bud passes into the flower, the shadow into the 
substance, the type into the antitype, and God, who 
spake long and often by his servants, speaks at last by 
his Son. Nor will such an expectation as this be dis- 
appointed. There is already much of Christ's Ascen- 
sion in Elijah's translation ; but at the same time there 
are features in the later and more glorious event which 
exist not at all, or only in their weak beginnings, in 
the earlier : there are points of unlikeness, even of ab- 
solute contrast between the one and the other. Let us 
a little consider that earlier event to-day. reading it. 



and Christ's ascension. 



195 



as we go along, in the light thrown upon it by the 
later. 

Elijah's work is now done ; his long controversy 
with Israel, with an apostate king and a rebellious 
people, is drawing to a close ; he shall no longer 
prophesy as in sackcloth, denouncing heavy things to 
his people, — shutting up heaven with a word, with- 
holding for long years the rain and the dew from the 
earth, — slaying the wicked prophets of Baal ; a man 
of peace, yet by a miserable necessity bringing a sword. 
All this has ended now. It has been revealed to him 
that his warfare is accomplished ; his rest and reward 
are near. He shall be withdrawn in a wonderful way 
from the earth. He knows not, indeed, that this which 
has been revealed to him has been revealed also to his 
faithful servant and minister, Elisha ; he makes, there- 
fore, more efforts than one. to leave him behind, seek- 
ing, as was so natural, that no eye of man should wit- 
ness the wonderful and mysterious change whereof he 
should be the subject. But Elisha cleaves to him with 
a clinging affection : " As the Lord liveth, and as thy 
soul liveth, I will not leave thee." He counts, and 
rightly, that there will be some boon and blessing for 
him, some legacy of love, if only he be with his master 
to the last, and behold him in the very moment of his 
departure. He will not take a dismissal, and the per- 
tinacity of his faith at length meets with its reward. 
Elijah no longer seeks to dismiss him ; on the contrary, 
suggests to him that he should put himself in the way 
of a blessing, " Ask what I shall do for thee before I 
be taken far away from thee ; " whereupon the longing 



196 



ELIJAH'S TRANSLATION 



desire and expectation of Elisha's soul clothe them- 
selves in this petition : "I pray thee let a double por- 
tion of thy spirit be upon me." 

These words, I would observe by the way, have been 
often misunderstood, as though Elisha had claimed 
twice as much of the spirit as that portion which Elijah 
had for his own. Now none could impart more than 
he actually possessed — as much perhaps as he pos- 
sessed, or a part of what he possessed, but certainly 
not more. Neither does Elisha ask more. All that 
he asks is, to be recognized as Elijah's eldest son, 
that to him, among the spiritual sons of the prophet, 
the rights of primogeniture might pertain. It was a 
part of these rights, of the privileges of an eldest son, 
that the father might bequeath, or indeed was bound 
to bequeath, to him a double portion of his inheritance, 
twice as much as he bequeathed to any other ; * and it 
is this, not a portion twice as much as Elijah himself 
actually had, that Elisha sought. The whole course # 
of the after history would, indeed, sufficiently refute 
this latter interpretation ; for, even granting that the 
miracles of Elisha are more in number than those of 
Elijah, and appeal is sometimes made to this fact, yet 
none who reads this history with any true insight can 
deny that in Elijah we have the loftier figure, the more 
heroic nature, the more predominant spirit ; that Eli- 
sha, the scholar, might indeed carry on the work which 
Elijah, the master, had auspicated and begun, might 
complete, but could scarcely have commenced, that 



* Deut. xxL 17. 



and Christ's ascension. 



197 



great, and in many respects most successful, protest 
against idolatry which his mightier precursor was first 
raised up to bear. 

But in all this story a higher meaning is ever present 
with us as we read. We read of Elijah, but we feel 
that a greater than Elijah is here. Our thoughts carry 
us on to One who, like the prophet of the elder dis- 
pensation, had finished the work upon earth which his 
Father had given him to do ; who had borne the 
burden and the heat of a yet fiercer day than the 
prophet had ever borne, endured with a diviner pa- 
tience, with not even one passing movement of impa- 
tience, a worse contradiction of sinners, had drunk the 
cup of a bitterer agony, had been baptized with the bap- 
tism of a more searching pain ; and who, now about 
to leave the earth, announced to his faithful disciples 
that legacy of love, that promise of the Father, that 
double portion of the Spirit, which He would bequeath 
to them, and which should compensate them for his 
bodily absence in those coming times when they should 
behold no more Him whom the heavens had received 
out of their sight. 

But to proceed : the actual translation of Elijah is 
recorded in those words which I have chosen for my 
text : " And it came to pass, as they still went on, and 
talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, 
and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder ; and 
Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." Com- 
pare with this the Ascension of our blessed Lord :• 
" And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was 
parted from them, and carried up into heaven." The 



198 



Elijah's translation 



placing of one account side by side with the other is 
very instructive, and suggests many points of com- 
parison. Elijah is translated, a chariot of fire and 
horses of fire are commissioned to snatch him away 
from the earth, and carry him to heaven ; but our 
Lord is borne upward by his innate power ; He is not 
translated, He ascends. He came from heaven, and He 
returns to heaven, as to his natural home. The wonder 
is, not that He should now at length go to heaven, 
but that He should so long have tarried upon earth. 
Calmly, majestically, He ascends, carrying with Him 
that body which He had redeemed from the grave. 
No fire-chariot is needed for Him ; and why ? there is 
nothing of earthly dross requiring to be burnt out of 
Him, no wondrous transformation, no last baptism of 
cleansing fire before He can endure to pass into the 
presence of his Father ; but such as He was upon 
earth, exactly such He passes into the heavens. No 
shock, no whirlwind, no violent rapture in his case ; 
for in his Ascension there is no breach of the laws of 
his natural life, but all is in exactest conformity with 
them. Surely in aH this matter the comparison be- 
tween the servant and the Son brings out to us the 
greatness indeed of both ; but at the same time the 
transcendent superiorities of the Son, who in all things 
hath the preeminence. 

In what follows after Elijah has been taken up, we 
may have a dim foreshadowing of the history of the 
church, above all the apostolic church after the As- 
cension of its Lord. Elisha, we are told, the faithful 
disciple, " took the mantle of Elijah which fell from 



and Christ's ascension. 



199 



hini, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord 
God of Elijah ? and when he also had smitten the 
waters, they parted hither and thither, and Elisha 
went oyer." The significance of this lies in the fact 
that it is exactly the same miracle * which Elijah him- 
self had a little while before performed. Are we not 
here reminded of Him who, "being Himself anointed 
with the oil of gladness above his fellows, did yet, 
when He left the earth, not so leave it but that He left 
behind Him gifts and graces and powers with his 
church, endowing it with these from on high ; and so 
effectually endowing it, that the works which He did, 
it was able to do the same, fulfilling to the very letter 
that promise which He had made : " He that believeth 
on Me, the works that I do, he shall do also, because I 
go unto my Father ?" These powers, these gifts, these 
supernatural endowments were, so to speak, the mantle 
which fell from our ascending Lord, the mantle which 
the church took up, with which it has arrayed itself; 
in right of possessing which it claims to be the in- 
heritor of its Lord's commission ; in the power which 
that imparts, seeks ever to carry on and to complete 
its Lord's work, to repeat and multiply his works of 
grace and mercy and power in the world. 

And if we, brethren, have seen, like Elisha, our Mas- 
ter taken from our head, if a cloud has received Him 
out of our sight, what shall be our conduct, what re- 
mains for us to do ? Both narratives are abundantly 
instructive. Elisha wasted not his time in idle lamen- 



See ver. 8. 



200 



ELIJAH S TRANSLATION 



tations ; there was but that one cry, " My father, my 
father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof! " 
and then he girt himself to his own work, though a 
work to be performed in his Master's strength. And 
the Apostles, they stood not for long idly gazing up 
into heaven, watching the track of their departing 
Lord and the path of light that He had left ; but re- 
turning to Jerusalem, " continued with one accord in 
prayer and supplication," waiting for the promise of 
the Father ; which no sooner had they received than 
they became witnesses to Christ " in Jerusalem, and in 
all Judsea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost 
part of the earth." They felt, and they felt rightly, 
that they were not weaker through his departure, but 
stronger. Those words of his, " It is expedient for you 
that I go away," had been a hard saying to them at 
the first ; but it was not long before they understood 
them, before they tasted of the sweet which lay con- 
cealed in their seeming bitter, before they understood 
that a Lord in heaven, sitting at the right hand of 
God, receiving there gifts for men, and shedding 
abroad those gifts upon men, this was better than a 
Saviour upon earth, limited by conditions of time and 
space, with a Holy Ghost not yet given, because the 
Son of God was not yet glorified. They understood 
this ; and let us, my brethren, ask of God that we may 
understand the same, — what this, our Lord's Ascension 
and sitting at the right hand of God, is for us and for 
all believers ; why Ascension-day, if it does not quite 
attain to the dignity and honor of the first three among 
the Christian festivals, Christmas-day, and Easter-day, 



and Christ's ascension. 



201 



and Whit-Sunday, is yet only a little inferior to them ; - 
while it transcends in the dignity and importance of 
the event which it commemorates every other day in 
our Christian calendar. 

Very briefly, then, Christ's Ascension is, in the first 
place, the complement of his Resurrection. It was not 
enough that He should rise from the dead and walk 
this earth again. He must show that not earth, but 
heaven, is his home, and the centre to which He is 
irresistibly drawn. He must take his place as the 
Universal Bishop, the Bishop of all souls ; no longer 
the Shepherd of one little flock in Judasa. but the Great 
Shepherd of the sheep gathered in from many flocks 
into a wider fold. Christ's Ascension enables you to 
regard Him as the King of Glory, Head over all things 
in the church, and as such having received gifts for 
men. True, there were gifts and blessings before, but 
not in such largeness : they were restrained, the full 
fountains of grace were not yet unsealed. A few drops 
of blessing had sprinkled a single family, a single na- 
tion : but now in full fountains it overflowed the world. 
The dew was hitherto upon Gideon's fleece only, and 
it was dry upon all the earth besides ; but now there 
was to be dew on all the ground.* 

There is another aspect under which Christ's Ascen- 
sion may be regarded ; that which it is the object of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews more than of any other 
Scripture to bring before us. We have now not a 
King only sitting on the throne of power, but a High 



* Judges vi. 37-40. 

9* 



202 



Elijah's translation 



Priest as well, who lias passed within the veil, there to 
appear before God for us, to carry forward in heaven 
the work which He auspicated on earth ; who died for 
us once, but who lives for us for evermore. He made 
one offering for sin ; but He pleads the virtue of that 
offering continually. There is always a way for us to 
the Father ; for He who first opened that way keeps 
it open for us still ; else our sins would presently ob- 
struct it anew, and all boldness and freedom of access 
' to the Father would in a little while be as effectually 
lost again as though it had never been won ; but now, 
if any man sin, we have an Advocate, Jesus Christ 
the Righteous. And such we have, and have only, 
because He has made good his own words, " I ascend 
to my Father and your Father, to my God and your 
God. 77 

One word more. It is plainly the intention of our 
church to suggest, — she does it by her Collect for to- 
day, — that we should find in the contemplation of our 
ascended Lord a motive to heavenly-mindedness ; for 
where our treasure is, there our heart should be also. 
Christ is our treasure — we profess at least that He is 
so ; and He is in heaven. Let our hearts be there 
also ; let us, according to that word of the Apostle, 
" seek those things which are above, where Christ sit- 
teth on the right hand of God. 77 And how does He 
sit there ? for in the answer to this question is an ad- 
ditional motive to holiness. In his human body ; in 
that humanity which He, the Eternal Word, has mar. 
ried to Himself forever. It is not now, as before the 
Incarnation, the Son of God only that is in the bosom 



AND CHRIST'S ASCENSION. 



203 



of the Father,* but the Son of man also that sitteth at 
the right hand of the Majesty on high. Taking this 
flesh of ours, this nature which we bear, from his Vir- 
gin Mother, and purifying it in the act of taking, He 
kept it pure, kept it unspotted, made it the organ and 
instrument of that divine life which He lived upon 
earth, and in the end offered Himself in it, the Son of 
Mary, Jesus of Nazareth, as a sacrifice of a sweet- 
smelling savor ; and this done, and death overcome, 
presented Himself in it, with the prints of the nails in 
his hands, of the spear in his side, for the worship of 
angels, for an equal place with his Father on the throne 
of heaven. Treat, then, with reverence and respect 
your mortal bodies ; possess them in sanctification and 
honor. They are akin to his body. You have nour- 
ished them, — I trust you will again nourish them to- 
day, — with his blessed body and blood, which is the 
very salve of immortality. They may be made the 
organs of a divine life in you, as that body which He 
assumed was the organ of a divine life in Him ; and 
then where He is, you will be there also. 



* John i. 18. 



SERMON XIX. 



CHRIST RECEIVING GIFTS FOR MEN. 

Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led captivity captive : Thou 
hast received gifts for men ; yea, for the rebellious also, that the 
Lord God might dwell among them. — Psalm lxviii. 18. 

ti)l)ti>gttn&ag. 

THESE words, drawn from a Psalm of David, form 
part of a magnificent hymn of triumph which he 
composed when, after some great victories gained over 
the enemies of God and of Israel, he and his people, 
returning from the war, brought back with gladness 
and solemnities of triumph the Ark of God, which had 
gone forth with their armies, to its resting-place in 
Jerusalem once more. But the words which the Holy 
Spirit dictated and suggested to David were so over- 
ruled, so ordered by that same Spirit, that they might 
fitly be applied, many of them, to a far mightier tri- 
umph than this — the victory of the Son of God over 
all Ms enemies ; the going up, not of the Ark of God 
into its former resting-place at Jerusalem, but the go- 
ing up of the Son of God to his own place in heaven ; 
the distribution of gifts, not such as David or some 
earthly monarch might distribute on some high day of 
rejoicing, gold and silver, sheep and oxen, for the 

(201) 



CHRIST RECEIVING GIFTS FOR MEN. 205 

nourishing of an earthly gladness, but such higher gifts 
as He gives from whom comes every good and every 
perfect gift. 

St. Paul saw that this meaning lay in the words, that 
such application of them would be in accordance with 
the mind of the Spirit ; and therefore, treating in the 
Epistle to the Ephesians of the Ascension of Christ, 
and the outpouring of the gifts of the Spirit which 
followed that Ascension, he cites, as you may remem- 
ber, at least in part, the memorable words of my text j 
and, so to speak, claims them for Christ, and sets his 
seal to their fitness for the services of this day. His 
words are, " But unto every one of us is given grace, 
according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Where- 
fore He saith, when He ascended up on high, He led 
captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now that 
He ascended, what is it but that He also descended 
first into the lower parts of the earth ?" These last 
words being the Apostle's own, he indicates in them 
that Christ's ascent into heaven was a consequence of 
his descent upon earth, yea, and under the earth. He 
went down, and therefore it was that He went up ; 
He humbled Himself, and therefore it was that God 
exalted Him ; He chose for Himself the cross of shame 
upon earth, and therefore it was that God gave Him 
the throne of glory in heaven ; He ascended, but He 
had first descended. 

The words are well worth our dwelling on. It is 
not for nothing that St. Paul lays such an emphasis 
upon them ; for indeed he is giving us here the secret 
of all true glory — that it rests and is based on humility. 



206 CHRIST RECEIVING GIFTS FOR MEN. 

Lucifer, the son of the morning, the prince of the apos- 
tate angels, he too had said, " I will ascend into heaven ; 
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God."* But 
what came of his ascension, based as it was not on hu- 
mility, but on pride ? He who sought to be the high- 
est, became the lowest. He fell, as only an angel could 
fall, from the height of heaven to the depth of hell. 
But Christ, He also ascended ; only He had first de- 
scended, had taken the form of a servant, had been 
willing to be accounted the lowest and the last, and 
thus attained of right to be highest and the first. As 
his descent, so also his ascent. " Thou hast ascended 
on high." When the Apostles, as they stood upon 
Mount Olivet, followed with straining eyes the track 
of their departing Lord, with these they could follow 
Him but a little way ; presently a cloud received Him 
out of their sight. But by faith they could follow, and 
we can follow, far. We know whither He was bound, 
that he was going far above all heavens, to his Father 
and to our Father, to the right hand of the throne of 
God, there to sit, the Man Christ Jesus, wielding the 
sceptre of the universe, the supreme Lord of earth and 
of heaven and of hell ; " angels and authorities and 
powers being made subject unto Him." Truly it was 
on high that He ascended. 

But this was not all. " Thou hast led captivity 
captive." Perhaps we shall best understand these 
words by imagining to ourselves some earthly monarch 
who has triumphed gloriously over his foes, who has 



* Isaiah xiv. 13. 



CHRIST RECEIVING GIFTS FOR MEN. 20 7 

delivered a multitude of his own people whom those 
foes were oppressing, whom they had brought into bit- 
ter bondage ; and is now returning to his capital city, 
bringing home the fruits and trophies of victory, and 
among the most signal, and to him far the most precious 
of these, his own people whom he has delivered. They 
were captives once ; but he has redeemed them out of 
the hands of their enemies, and is thus leading their cap- 
tivity captive. If they are captives still, it is his cap- 
tives they are ; and that captivity they are well content 
to undergo, for it is only liberty under another name. 
Take, for instance, Lot. You may remember how he 
with all his household fell into the hands of the con- 
federate kings, and how Abraham, hearing of the mis- 
fortune which had befallen his nephew, armed himself 
and his servants, pursued and smote the spoilers, and 
rescued Lot out of their hands, and in this way led his 
captivity captive, — gave him in fact his liberty again, 
only binding him by ties of a dearer obligation to him- 
self. Or contemplate David, when, returning to Zik- 
lag, he found that the Amalekites had burned the city 
in his absence, and carried away the wives and children 
of himself and of his people ; contemplate him pur- 
suing, overtaking, destroying those, rescuing these 
dearly-beloved out of their grasp, and you will have 
in this and that other exploit some faint earthly image 
of that work of rescue and recovery which Christ our 
Lord, Son of Abraham and Son of David, wrought for 
us, led away as we were into slavery, the thralls and 
captives of Satan and of sin. He also pursued and 
overtook, smote the spoiler, brought back again the 



208 CHRIST RECEIVING GIFTS FOR MEN. 

spoiled ; saw in them whose bonds He had broken, 
whose captivity He led captive, the best fruits of the 
travail of his soul, the choicest trophies of his war. 
And, indeed, were they not ? What signs and tokens 
of his power like these — when sinners become saints, 
when servants of dead idols are changed into servants 
of the living God, when Sauls are transformed into 
Pauls, slaves of sin into freemen of Christ ? It was 
for this, brethren, that Christ lived, and died, and rose 
again, and ascended into heaven, namely, that we 
might be thus transformed, that we might be thus made 
free, that the chains of evil customs and sinful habits 
might fall off from our souls ; that He might thus lead 
our captivity captive, and bring us into the liberty of 
the glory of the children of God. 

But how should this be ? How should this be 
brought about ? The mere pattern and example of his 
holy life was not sufficient. We might have seen and 
admired that afar off ; we might have derived a certain 
limited amount of good from the contemplation of it ; 
but more than this, much more than this, we needed. 
He must not be merely the pattern of a new and higher 
life ; He must be the power of that life ; they who are 
his must be endued by Him with power from on high. 
And it is even so. The work of men's deliverance, 
which He began while He was on earth, He carries on 
and completes from heaven. He " received gifts for 
men," the manifold gifts of the Holy Ghost. He had 
been Himself, the Man Christ Jesus, anointed with 
these, with the Holy Ghost and with power, during 
the time that He tabernacled on earth. The Father 



CHRIST RECEIVING GIFTS FOR MEN. 209 

gave not the Spirit by measure to the Son, but anointed 
Him with the oil of gladness above his fellows. All 
gifts and graces without stint and without measure, 
the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Ghost, were his. The 
Priest, the Prophet, the King of the New Covenant, 
He was able, " because of the anointing/' to fulfil duly 
upon earth the offices which pertained to each ; while, 
being in heaven, He is no longer there the Receiver, 
but the Giver, — the Giver of all good gifts to the chil- 
dren of men ; whom He has not forsaken, whom He 
has not forgotten, (how should He, when He bears their 
nature still, is bone of their bone, and flesh of their 
flesh ?) and, above all, of that gift in which every other 
gift is shut up and included, — the gift of the HoJy 
Ghost, which is the crowning gift of all. How tran- 
scendent a gift this is, we can best understand when we 
remember that Christ, who would not and could not 
deceive, proffered it to his mourning disciples as a sub- 
stitute for Himself, as a sufficient compensation for his 
own absence ? He was Himself one Comforter, and 
the Holy Ghost, whom the Father would send in his 
name, should be another ; yea, in some sort it was ex- 
pedient that He should go away, for the presence of 
that other Comforter with them should more than 
make up for his own absence from them. 

Such were the gifts, or such rather was the gift, 
which He, being glorified, received for men and im- 
parted to men ; yes, and imparts evermore ; for when 
we contemplate, as to-day we are doing, these pente- 
costal gifts, we must not think of them as given once 
for all, as though on one signal occasion heaven was 



210 CHRIST RECEIVING GIFTS FOR MEN. 

opened and the Spirit descended, and then, this done, 
that heaven was again shut, and the streams of blessing 
withholden again. Not so ; He who gave once, gives 
always. The pure river of water of life, clear as crys- 
tal, proceeds evermore out of the throne of God and 
of the Lamb.* These are gifts for men ; and as long 
as there are men needing these gifts, they will not 
cease. And that will be always, even to the end of 
the world. In a world of sorrow such as ours, when 
will the office of a Comforter cease ? In a world of 
sin such as ours, when will the office of a Sanctifier be 
, out of date ? 

Surely a blessed thought, my brethren, that these 
gifts of Pentecost, whose first imparting we celebrate 
to-day, belong as truly to us as they did to the apos- 
tles, on whom, as upon this day, they lighted visibly 
and audibly to all. He who is the Author of those 
gifts descends not now upon us with a mighty rushing 
wind, and with tongues of fire. These outward tokens, 
addressing themselves to eye and ear, are wanting at 
the present ; but He is with us still. The church 
would not exist for an hour without Him, without his 
presence and his power. He is with us still, enliven- 
ing, purifying, enlightening, healing, strengthening, 
comforting, convincing of sin, taking of the things of 
Christ and showing them to the contrite sinner, con- 
verting* the soul, moving on the face of the waters of 
baptism, and making them to be waters of regener- 
ation, causing common bread and common wine to be 



* Rev. xxii. 1. 



CHEIST RECEIVING GIFTS FOR MEN. 



211 



to the faithful receiver the body of Christ and the 
blood of Christ, and from the rich treasure-house of 
his manifold gifts dividing to every one severally as 
He will. 

But perhaps there may be some one here present 
who is saying in his heart, Christ, the ascended Lord, 
may have gifts for men, manifold gifts of grace and of 
the Holy Spirit for manifold sorts of men ; but He 
can have none for me ; I have so grieved that Holy 
Spirit, I have so resisted his godly motions in times 
past, I have done such despite to the Spirit of grace, 
that He will never more plead with me, knock at the 
door of my heart, or seek to make his habitation 
there ; I am a dry tree, which at no scent of water 
can ever again blossom or bud. But hear me, or 
rather hear God, how He has prevented thine unbe- 
lief, and will give no room for thy despair : " Thou 
hast received gifts for men ; yea, for the rebellious 
also, that the Lord God might dwell among them." 
And these are not mere words. They were shown to 
be very truth ; God set his seal to them on that great 
day of Pentecost, when they received for the first time 
their perfect fulfilment. Who were those three thou- 
sand who on that birthday of souls heard the Word 
gladly, and were added to the church of the living 
God ? They were for the most part no other than the 
men who had been rebellious to that very day ; who 
had, as St. Peter plainly told them, taken the Lord of 
Life, and with wicked hands crucified and slain. And 
these very rebels, with all that blood upon them so 
newly shed, even the blood of God, they were now 



212 CHRIST RECEIVING GIFTS FOR MEN. 



made willing in the day of his power. They were 
pricked to the heart ; convinced of sin, convinced of 
righteousness, convinced of judgment to come ; and 
cried out of the depth of penitent hearts to Peter and 
the rest, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" 
And what if you have been rebellious, and what if you 
have been enemies, enemies by wicked works ? It was 
while we were yet enemies that Christ died for us ; it 
is while we are yet enemies that He comes to us in the 
power of his Spirit, knocks at our closed hearts, that 
He may find entrance there, and that so the Lord God 
may dwell among us. 

Oh, then, say not thou, These gifts are not for me. 
They are for thee ; they are for men, and for the re- 
bellious among men, — for them of whom it might have 
been said unto this very day, " Ye do always resist the 
Holy Ghost." But this day, friends, is a day of 
power ; it is a day of grace ; it is a day of gifts. 
Heaven is open. He with whom we have to do is He 
" that hath the seven spirits of God," * who can take 
you out of the mire, and set you among princes. Ye 
have lain among the pots, and yet your wings may be 
as the wings of a dove that is covered with silver 
wings, and her feathers like gold.f Do not limit his 
power ; do not shorten his hand ; do not think hard 
things of his love. Ask Him to work his work in you, 
and He will work it : He will make your old heart 
new, and your dead heart alive ; and your heart, 
which, it may be, was as a cage of unclean birds, as a 



* Rev. iii. 1. 



f Ps. lxviii 13. 



CHRIST RECEIVING GIFTS FOR MEN. "213 

robber's den, where every thought and every imagina- 
tion was as a robber of God and his glory, He will 
make even that a temple of the Holy Ghost, a habita- 
tion of God through the Spirit. He can do this, and, 
if only you will allow Him, He iviU. 



SERMON XX. 



THE HOLY TRINITY IN RELATION TO OUR PRAYERS. 



And they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God 
Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. — Rev. iv. 8. 



XJL tian year, which I need not remind you begins 
with Advent Sunday, we have kept three great festi- 
vals, not to speak of many lesser ones, interspersed 
among, or grouped around these which are the three 
first and greatest of all. We have celebrated Christ- 
mas-day, which may be fitly called the festival of the 
Father ; for upon that day the Father sent the Son to 
be the Saviour of the world. We have celebrated our 
Easter feast, which may be fitly styled the festival of 
the Son ; for upon that day He was declared the Son 
of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. 
We are fresh from the celebration of Whitsunday, 
which is most truly the festival of the Holy Ghost, the j 
Spirit of the Father and of the Son, who was upon that 
day shed abroad from heaven on the hearts of the 
waiting disciples. And now'at length, having thus 

* Preached at one of the Special Evening Services in the nave of the 




commencement of our Chris- 



Abbey. 



(214) 



THE HOLY TRINITY. 



215 



declared the glory severally of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, we keep, as the crown 
and consummation of all, the feast of the Holy and 
Blessed Trinity, weaving these three glories into one 
glory, proclaiming these three Persons to be but one 
God, who is blessed for evermore ) we join our songs 
with the songs of the four living creatures before the 
throne, of the four-and-twenty elders, of Cherubim and 
Seraphim who continually do cry, " Holy, Holy, Holy," 
— three Holies, and yet but one Holy, — even the " Lord 
God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." 

Perhaps there may be some here, one and another, 
who, as they listen to these words, are saying in their 
hearts, I cannot understand this of the three Persons, 
who yet are but one God. Doubtless you cannot ; 
we were not meant to understand it ; we were not 
formed to contain God's truth, but to be contained by 
it, as by something larger, mightier than ourselves. 
This, which we speak of, is a mystery ; and Revelation, 
which means unveiling, an unveiling of God, of his 
character, of his being, must have mysteries, yea, many 
and deep ones. You may perhaps have heard a line 
from a famous English poet, which, if not quoted very 
often now, was a few years ago a great favorite with 
some. It is this — 

" Religion ends, where mystery begins." 

Now, my dear friends, I take on me to affirm that there 
never was a falser, and, despite a certain clever sound 
which it has, there seldom was a shallower, word 
spoken than this. Plain things there are in religion ; 



216 



THE HOLY TEINITY IN 



all necessary things are plain ; but there are also deep 
things — yea, the deep things of God, hard to under- 
stand, or which pass our understanding altogether. 
We might as well expect to take up the great sea in 
the hollow of our hand, as to embrace God — the whole 
mystery of his being — in our minds ; the finite to em- 
brace the Infinite I the creature to comprehend the 
Creator ! the child of time Him that is from everlast- 
ing to everlasting, who was, and is, and shall forever 
be ! Why, that would not be God at all, but only 
some dream and fancy of our own minds, whom we 
could understand, whom we could fathom in all his 
mysteries. Man knoweth the things of man ; but only 
God knoweth the things of God. We see but the skirts 
of his glory. Some things we understand about Him. 
Other things we are told, and bidden humbly and de- 
voutly to receive and believe, and to live by them. 
For they may be life to the soul, and strength to the 
spirit, even while the mind, the intellectual faculty, is 
quite unable to master them, or to bring them within 
its own forms and conditions. It is thus with the mys- 
tery of the Trinity, of the Father, the Son, and the 
Spirit, three Persons and one God. Angels live by it, 
as men must live by it ; and yet I suppose that it tran- 
scends the minds of angels, as much as it transcends the 
minds of men. They do not seek to fathom it. It is 
enough for them to stand before the throne, to veil 
their faces there, to cry one unto another, " Holy, Holy, 
Holy, is the Lord God of Hosts ; the whole earth is 
full of his glory," — to praise, to worship, to adore. 
O brethren, what a glimpse of heaven, and of the 



RELATION TO OUR PRAYERS. 217 

whole company of heaven, is vouchsafed us in this 4th 
chapter of Revelation, from which my text is drawn — 
praise, worship, and adoration all their business and 
all their delight ! Once they prayed, but prayer is now 
transfigured into praise. What need of prayer ? They 
have nothing to ask. Their warfare is accomplished ; 
there is no one now who can take their crown ; sin 
and Satan are forever bruised beneath their feet ; they 
see God's face ; his name is written in their foreheads ; 
they are as pillars in the temple of God that shall go 
out no more. He has put a new song in their mouths, 
so glad, so glorious, so divine, that even the faint 
echoes of that song which reach us here make sweeter 
music in our ears than all the mirth and melodies of 
earth ! 

We cannot at this present learn that song of theirs. 
We may learn it hereafter. It may be hereafter fitted 
to our lips, as it is to theirs, but not now. We still 
bear about with us the burden of the flesh. We are 
still compassed with infirmities. We may be striving 
— I trust many of us are striving — to lead godly lives ; 
such lives as of God's great mercy shall lead us up at 
last to the steps of the throne, and the presence of 
Him that sitteth upon it ; but, oh, what recurring temp- 
tations are our portion here, what struggles against 
our grosser animal nature ! — what harsh discords 
around us, what harsh discords within us ! — with how 
many things to sadden, and how many things to de- 
press ! How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange 
land ? Praise God we may and ought, for praise is 
comely, and He giveth songs in the night ; and voices 
10 



218 



THE HOLY TRINITY IN 



out of the great deep may yet be voices of thanksgiving ; 
and men have praised Him as Jonah did out of the 
whale's belly ; and as Paul and Silas did out of tho 
inner dungeon ; and as the Three Children did out of 
the burning fiery furnace. But the clear hymns of joy, 
of joy untroubled with any sorrow, the harmonies in 
which no discords mingle, those are not of earth, but 
of heaven. They are fitted to the lips, not of those 
who are exiles still in a far foreign land, seeking a 
country, but of those who have sought and found ; who, 
once beaten and buffeted by the waves of the trouble- 
some world, are now at length in the haven of ever- 
lasting rest, where they would be. 

Friends and brethren, would you learn that new 
song ? Do you desire that the issue of your lives may 
be, that they shall lead you at length to the Golden 
City, the New Jerusalem, the presence of God, a place 
before his throne ? Do you desire to leave behind you 
all which has here debased and degraded you, which is 
debasing and degrading still — your sins and all the 
guilty memories which they have bequeathed ? Do you 
desire to emerge out of this darkness into that heavenly 
light, to praise God for evermore ? I know you desire 
this. Quite apart from the mere wish to escape from 
punishment and pain, there are yearnings and longings 
in the heart of every one of you, which nothing has 
been able quite to crush or to subdue — yearnings and 
longings which can only find their satisfaction in God, 
and which you feel can only find their satisfaction in 
Him. And yet how shall that be the issue and the 
end, if the paths which you are treading now are too 



RELATION TO OUR PRAYERS. 



219 



many of them such as will lead you from God, and not 
to Him ? How shall you praise Him there, if you do 
not pray to Him here? Suffer me, then, under the 
suggestions of my text, moved also by the fact that 
this is Trinity Sunday on which we are here gathered 
together, to speak to you a little of prayer, in connec- 
tion with the three Persons of the ever-blessed Trinity; 
and may we so learn to pray to God now, that we "may 
praise Him for evermore ! * 

You may remember some words of St. Paul, where, 
speaking of Christ the Lord, he says, " Through Him 
we all have access by one Spirit to the Father.* In 
this little verse we have mention of all the three Per- 
sons. There is the Father to whom we have access, or 
approach in prayer ; there is the Son, through whom 
we have this access ; and, lastly, there is the Spirit, in 
whom this access, this open way to God and to the 
throne of grace, is ours. 

And, first, it is access to the Father ; He is the ulti- 
mate object of our prayers. I do not say that we may 
not most fitly pray to Christ. He too is God. Our 
church, in more than one of her Collects, expressly ad- 
dresses herself to Him, makes her supplication to Him. 
Still these are the exceptions, and not the rule. They 
are more often brief ejaculations of the soul that go 
forth to Him, as those in the Litany : " Lamb of God, 
that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy 
peace f or as this, ' ; Son of David, have mercy upon 
us." It is these, rather than more set deliberate pray- 
ers, which are addressed to the second Person of the 

* Ephes. il 18. 



220 



THE HOLY TKINITY IN 



Trinity. We have access to the Father, and our prayers 
must not stop short till they mount up to Him. The 
prayer of all prayers, that with which the Son of God 
taught us to pray, begins with " Our Father." words 
of comfort and strength unutterable for the children of 
men ! Conceive to yourselves what it would be, how 
it would fare with us, if God only presented Himself 
to us as a God of nature, a God of power, a Maker 
of heaven and earth, with a certain vague general 
benevolence and good-will toward us, in common with 
the other creatures of his hand. Think what this would 
be, in our trials, our temptations, our remorse of con- 
science, our agonies, this God of nature, as compared 
with what is, a God of men, a Father in heaven, who 
opens wide a Father's arms to his wandering and suf- 
fering children here, and will embrace with a Father's 
love, and draw them close to a Father's heart. Here 
is the magic of that word of the Gospel which we de- 
clare, here is its secret, attractive power — that it 
wakens up in the hearts of the poor prodigals of 
earth such thoughts as these, " I will arise, and go 
to my Father." To my Father ! what words are these, 
of what strong consolation! How many that have 
wandered far, whom their sins have overtaken and 
found out, bankrupt in hope, bankrupt in health, bank- 
rupt in character, bankrupt in everything, steeped, it 
may be, in infamy and scorn, whom the world had 
ruined and then cast off, desolate, forsaken, pierced 
through with many sorrows, in hospitals, in prisons, in 
far places of their exile, how many of these have found 
the consolation that is in these words, and have arisen 



RELATION TO OUR PRAYERS. 



221 



and gone to their God, because their God was their 
Father as well. 

And what though we may not have eaten all the bit- 
ter fruits of our doings, as they have done of theirs, 
though we may have never sounded the depths of their 
desolation and despair, yet do we not need every one 
of us evermore to take on our lips these same words ? 
for we too have all departed — some, indeed, more 
widely than others — but all have departed from our 
God, all have need to exclaim, " Father, I have sinned 
before heaven and against Thee." And prayer, it is 
such a confession as this ; followed up, indeed, by a 
making known of all our wants to God — but still to 
God as a Father, as the Father, from whom every other 
father, every father upon earth, has drawn whatever 
little of love, care, pity, tenderness, compassion he may 
have for his children* — this love of the earthly parents, 
of fathers and mothers here, being to us a faint shadow 
and a dim teaching of what is the love that beats 
in the heart of Him who is the Almighty Father in 
heaven. 

But if prayer is thus to the Father, it is, as St. Paul 
declares, through the Son. He is the daysman that 
must lay his hand upon us both, — upon God and man, 
upon God in heaven and man upon earth, upon God 
holy and man unholy, — and must bring them together, 
face to face, so that man may see God's face, and not 
perish in the seeing ; may enter into God's presence, 
and not be consumed by the intolerable brightness of 
that presence ; may speak with his unclean lips to 

* Eph. iii. 15. 



222 



THE HOLY TRINITY IN 



God, and yet, unclean as those lips are, may speak not 
in vain, but words which shall prevail. When we 
affirm, or rather when Scripture affirms, that all ap- 
proaches to God the Father, all approaches in prayer 
or otherwise, are through God the Son, that no man 
can come to the Father but by Him, while by Him all 
may come near, it affirms herein the absolute holiness 
of God, the deep sinfulness and defilement of man, 
which renders him quite incapable by himself of hold- 
ing communion, of entering into fellowship, with God ; 
which has put a broad gulf between these two ; but it 
asserts likewise that this gulf, which no other could 
bridge over, has yet been bridged over by Christ ; that 
He by his life, being at once God and man, the two 
natures in one person united, by his death, making a 
sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, has brought near 
those who were before far asunder ; that there is now 
freedom of access, an open way to the Father, through 
the Son. 

brethren, think not in your prayers to draw nigh 
to God making mention of any other name, except that 
Name which is above every name, the Name of Jesus, 
or making mention of any other righteousness but 
his — least of all, making mention of your own. Re- 
member Cain and Abel, and their several offerings, 
and how " the Lord had respect to Abel and his offer- 
ing ; but to Cain and his offering He had not respect." 
And why not ? what was the difference ? The offering 
of Cain was of the mere natural fruits of the earth ; 
the offering of Abel was of the firstlings of his flock. 
There was therefore blood, a prophecy of the blood 



RELATION TO OUR PRAYERS. 223 

of Christ, in Abel's offering ; there was none in 
Cain's ; and without that precious blood-shedding 
there is no remission of sin ; without faith in that 
blood-shedding no approach to the Father. Therefore 
was it, because Abel pleaded the blood of Christ in 
those firstlings of his flock, because Cain thought he 
could be accepted without that blood, that the Lord 
had respect to the offering of one, but had not respect 
to the offering of the other. Oh, beware of profane 
prayers ; and all prayers are profane which leave out, 
which do not rest on, the Atonement. When you 
enter into the presence of the great King, would you 
find favor with Him, and have his golden sceptre 
stretched out to you in grace ; would you, a suppliant 
Esther, trembling between life and death, hear words 
like these from his lips, " What wilt thou ? and what 
is thy request?" see, then, that you enter ever into 
that presence making mention of the name and of 
the righteousness of Christ, with his blood newly 
sprinkled by faith upon your soul. Say to God, I 
dare not draw nigh to Thee, holy as Thou art, unclean, 
leprous, sin-spotted as I am, except through Christ ; 
my prayers, they could never come up to Thee, except 
they were offered in the golden censer of my great 
High-priest, and mingled with the incense of his perfect 
obedience and his prevailing intercession. This is to 
draw near to the Father through the Son, and this is 
the only way by which we can draw near to Him. 

But, thirdly and lastly, it is in the Spirit that this 
access is ours. What may this mean? Prayer, my 
brethren, is a work of grace, and not of nature. We 



224 



THE HOLY TRINITY IN 



pray because God, God the Holy Ghost puts it into 
our hearts to pray, helps our infirmities, suggests to us 
what things we ought to pray for, and how. Look at 
a ship without a wind, becalmed in the middle sea, its 
sails flapping idly hither and thither ; what a dif- 
ference from the same ship, when the wind has filled 
its sails, and it is making joyful progress to the haven 
whither it is bound ! The breath of God, that is the 
wind which must fill the sails of our souls. We must 
pray in the Spirit, in the Holy Ghost, if we would pray 
at all. Lay this, I beseech you, to heart. Do not ad- 
dress yourselves to prayer as to a work to be accom- 
plished in your own natural strength. It is a work 
of God, of God the Holy Ghost, a work of his in you 
and by you, and in which you must be fellow-workers 
with Him, — but his work notwithstanding. How many 
forget this ; and what is the consequence ? They make 
a few ineffectual attempts at prayer, and then they 
complain that they cannot pray, that they cannot lift 
themselves from the earth, that, despite all their efforts, 
their souls cleave to the ground. Of course they do, 
unless the breath of God lifts them up from the earth. 
My dear hearers, is not this the secret of your dead, 
fruitless, heartless prayers ? does not this explain the 
fact that so many of you, who are listening with tol- 
erable attention to these words of mine to you, yet 
made little or no attempt to join in the prayers which 
went before the sermon, which should hav« been words 
of yours to God ; of the fact, perhaps sadder still, that 
so many of you are living without private prayer, 
without anything which deserves the name of secret 



RELATION TO OUR PRAYERS. 



225 



fellowship and communion with God? I know all 
your outward difficulties in this matter of prayer, or at 
least I am able to guess at them : difficulties from the 
crowded habitations of some, where it is almost im- 
possible to be alone ; difficulties from the tyrannous 
demands of your daily toil, leaving you, as it seems, 
little or no leisure to attend to anything beside. And 
yet, put these with all other outward difficulties to- 
gether, and they are not sufficient to explain the fearful 
extent to which the habit of private prayer has perished 
among our people. The evil lies deeper yet ; the root 
of it is this, that we have ceased to believe that we are 
in a kingdom of heaven, that we have been baptized 
into all the gifts of the Spirit ; that He, the Spirit, in 
this his kingdom, is blowing indeed where He lists, 
where He pleases, but that nothing pleases Him a 
thousandth part so well as to breathe upon our souls, 
to quicken them with life and power, with the spirit 
of supplication and the spirit of prayer. 

Prove if it be not so. Brethren beloved in the 
Lord, with such helps, with such divine assistances, 
why will you continue, so many of you, without prayer, 
and therefore practically without G-od in the world ? 
Say not that you have no time. You have time for 
sleep, time for meals, time for the newspaper, time for 
the club, time for trivial talk, time for everything but 
for God. Say not that you are no scholars, that you 
do not know how to pray. God will teach us, God 
the Holy Ghost ; and who teaches like Him? Cast 
yourselves on his teaching, upon his guidance, and He 
will lead you up, through the mediation of the Son, to 
10* 



226 



THE HOLY TRINITY. 



the throne and presence of the Father. Yes, and 
weak as you are now, weak as in yourselves you shall 
ever be, you shall yet go on from strength to strength, 
till you too appear before the Lord in that heavenly 
City which needeth no light of the sun, for the Lord 
God is the light thereof, where " Holy ! Holy ! Holy ! " 
is the song of praise through eternity of elect angels 
and redeemed men. 



SERMON XXI. 



ONE BODY AND ONE SPIEIT. 

There is one body and one Spirit. — Ephes. iv. 4. 

one, I think, can have failed to observe how 



±\ often the church of Christ is by St. Paul com- 
pared to a human body. Thus, in the Epistle to the 
Romans, " For as we have many members in one body, 
and all members have not the same office, so we, being 
many, are one body in Christ, and every one members 
one of another." * And again, in his first Epistle to 
the Corinthians, " For as the body is one, and hath 
many members, and all the members of that one body, 
being many, are one body, so also is Christ, " f or the 
church of Christ, as here is rightly understood ; and 
then he proceeds there, as you may remember, to draw 
out this comparison at length. Other like passages 
occur in the Colossians^: and elsewhere. "What, it 
may be asked, is the meaning of this comparison ? 
Why are the company of faithful men that are gather- 
ed under Christ, and united to Him, and in Him to one 
another, likened to a human body ? why called, as they 
so often are, the mystical body of Christ? There must 
be some highest fitness in this comparison, some deep 




* xii. 4, 5. f xii. 12. J U. 19. 

(227) 



228 



ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. 



inner correspondence between these two, else the Holy 
Ghost would not have so often chosen to set forth the 
mysteries of the one by the aid of the other. 

The Scriptures quoted seem to me to give an answer 
sufficient to this question. In the human body there is 
the greatest possible unity, and the greatest possible 
variety. One body, there is the unity ; many members, 
and each with its own office, diverse from every other, 
there is the variety. And it is exactly the same with 
Christ's church. That too is at the same time one and 
manifold — one, having the highest unity, in that it 
owns allegiance to one Lord, is inspired by one Spirit, 
has one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all ; 
but manifold, in that the members which compose it 
have various gifts, some of this kind, some of that, 
some more, some fewer — are wise and simple, learned 
and unlearned, strong and weak ; some have one func- 
tion and office to fulfil, and some another. 

Let us follow up both these points a little more in 
detail ; first, that of unity, then this of variety or mul- 
tiplicity ; and conclude by a brief consideration of 
some of the duties flowing out from the one and from 
the other. 

And first, of the unity or oneness of the church, as 
set forth by the unity or oneness of the body. " The 
body is one," says the apostle. Notwithstanding the 
several limbs or members of which it is composed, one 
life animates the whole. The parts mutually subserve 
one another. They instinctively feel that they belong 
to one another ; that they owe to one another mutual 
help and support. The hand does not labor for itself 



ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. 



229 



alone, but the food it earns nourishes the whole body. 
The arm is lifted up to turn away a blow not merely 
directed against itself, but threatening to harm any 
other limb. The eye does not see for itself alone, but 
gathers in notices from the outward world which turn 
to the profit of all. Each serves the other, and is 
served by the other in turn ; while the head thinks and 
the heart beats for all. Then, too, there is a certain 
harmony existing between all the members ; they con- 
stitute a symmetry among themselves, so that one could 
not be taken away without destroying the perfection 
of all the others, more or less marring the grace and 
beauty of the whole frame. If the body lives, it lives 
in every part ; if it dies, death reigns throughout it all. 
It is no cunning piece of mechanism, of which the sev- 
eral parts, the wheels, the cogs, the hammers, being as 
they are dead things, might exist independently of one 
another, and of the dead whole which together they 
compose ; but the body is a living organism, possessing 
that wonderful and mysterious principle of life, by 
which all the parts of it are knit and bound together, 
as no other law but this law of the spirit of life could 
ever have bound or knit them together. 

And so, too, the church is one — one mystical body, 
as we call it — having one Author, which is God, and 
one Head, which is Christ, and one informing Spirit, 
which is the Holy Ghost ; having one country toward 
which all its members are travelling, which is heaven ; 
one code of instructions to guide them thither, which 
is the Word of God ; one and the same band of ene- 
mies seeking to bar their passage, which are the world, 



230 



ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. 



the flesh, and the devil ; having the same effectual as- 
sistances in the shape of sacraments and other means 
of grace to enable them to overcome these enemies, 
and of God's good favor to attain the land of their 
rest. One has need to remember, at a time like the 
present, all these points wherein the unity of the 
church consists ; else, looking out at the distracted spec- 
tacle which a Christendom at this day presents, torn 
and rent in pieces, divided into so many, alas ! often- 
times hostile, camps, we might be tempted to think 
that this unity was nowhere, that Christ's promises 
had failed. 

The sins, indeed, of the church, being, as they are, 
so far more dreadful than the sins of the world, have 
hindered those promises taking full effect. His prayer 
to his Father for his people, " that they may be one, 
even as We are one," has not had that glorious fulfil- 
ment which it might have had ; the unity of the church 
has withdrawn itself from observation ; and yet for 
all this, and despite of all the miserable divisions of 
those who call themselves by the same holy name, but 
yet seem only anxious to disclaim brotherhood one 
with another, Cod's word stands true. " There is one 
body and one Spirit ;" and wherever there is on this 
redeemed earth, under whatever forms, mixed, debased, 
overlaid with whatever superstitions, any true love to 
God, and for God's sake love to man, any true affiance 
upon Christ and his sacrifice, any true obedience to 
the Spirit aod his leadings, there, in the man of whom 
this may be affirmed, there is a member of this mystical 
body whereof the Apostle speaks. He may have 



ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. 



231 



learned to pronounce his anathema upon us ; we may 
refuse to include him in our narrow scheme of Chris- 
tian fellowship ; but happily neither he nor we have a 
yoice conclusive, or, indeed, a voice potential at all, 
to determine who are members of this body, and who 
are not. It is a body far wider than his anathema, 
than our narrow-hearted exclusiveness, would leave it ; 
and he, who would fain shut out us, and we, who would 
willingly shut out him, may both belong to it alike, 
God's charity being so much mightier than our want 
of charity, — He blessing where we would curse, He 
including where we would only exclude. Despite of 
all our divisions, enmities, debates, all our readiness 
to bite and devour one another, all our denials by 
word and deed of the truth affirmed in my 'text, that 
truth remains, that truth stands unshaken : " There is 
one body and one Spirit." 

When I speak thus, I would not in the least imply 
that it is a matter of indifference whether we belong 
to a purer branch of Christ's church, or to one less 
pure ; to one holding the whole of God's truth, or only 
parts of that truth, though saving parts still ; all I seek 
to affirm is, that God acknowledges now, and will 
acknowledge at the last day, not those who have our 
mark upon them, but those who have Ms ; and as many 
as have thus " the spot of his children," ranged though 
they often be now in battle-array against one another, 
constitute in his eyes who sees not as we see, the one 
body, gathered under the one Head, which is Christ. 

But secondly, as in the human body there is unity, 
so there is also variety, diversity, multiplicity, or what- 



232 



ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. 



ever else we may please to call it. " All members 
have not the same office." You remember, no doubt, 
how fully St. Paul draws this out for the checking of 
the vanity of his Corinthian converts, who probably 
wanted, every one of them, to be everything in himself, 
a desire abundantly characteristic of the Greek love 
of display in those miserable fallen days of Greece. 
The body, he reminds them, is not one member, but 
many ; and then he shows the necessity of this : "If 
the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing ? 
if the whole were hearing, where were the smelling ?" 
" The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of 
thee ; nor again, the head to the feet, I have no need 
of you and so on. And then he proceeds, as none 
of us can have forgotten, to apply all this, to transfer 
this, which is true of the natural body, to the spiritual 
as well, to show how the same tempering of the parts 
holds good in it also. There are also " diversities of 
gifts/' " differences of administration," some having one 
gift, some another ; some in a more honorable place, and 
some in a humbler ; some furnished with ten talents, 
and some with five, and some only with one ; all which, 
as it was true in his days, so is it in ours. The church 
is most truly a body in this sense also, that its different 
members have different functions and offices to per- 
form, all these being severally assigned to them of 
God ; and then, and then only, it makes equable and 
harmonious growth, increases with the increase of 
God, when each, holding by the Head which is Christ, 
yet abiding in his own place, seeks diligently to fulfil 
the duties of that place, be it high or low, glorious or 



ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. 



233 



inglorious, in the sight of men or out of the sight of 
men, easy or hard ; and is contented to be hand, or 
foot, or what else it may be ; counting it glory enough 
to be a member in Christ's body at all, and to have 
any office and ministry pertaining to the good of that 
body. 

These things being so, let us occupy ourselves for 
such a time as remains to us, with considering some of 
the lessons which we may derive from the truths which 
have been just stated. 

And first, we are members of a body. Let us never 
forget this. It is only too easy to do so, to nourish 
a selfish isolated religion, apart from our brethren, 
neither seeking to give good to them, nor hoping to 
get good from them. When offences abound, when 
others misunderstand us, when they do not sympathize 
with us as we expect, when they seem to us prejudiced, 
bigoted, narrow-minded, eager about secondary mat- 
ters, what a temptation it is to say we will have noth- 
ing, or as little as possible, to do with them, to give 
up the attempt at working with them for a common 
end, and to resolve that we will cultivate a solitary 
piety for ourselves, apart with our God. Of course 
this would be much more pleasant, if we were set here 
to seek out what is pleasant for ourselves, — more pleas- 
ant, that is, to our selfish nature ; — many rubs and an- 
noyances would in this way be avoided ; we fancy, 
too, that thus we should grow much faster in spiritual 
things than clogged as we are and hampered by others, 
by their slowness, their narrowness, the thousand ob- 
stacles which they seem to place in our way. All ex- 



234 



ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. 



perience, however, proves the contrary. The spirit of 
selfish isolation in religious things is mischievous, and, 
if pushed very far, is fatal, to the life of God in the 
soul. The church is a body ; it must grow together, 
and by that which every joint supplieth. To separate 
from our brethren is to separate from Christ ; for He 
is with the body, being Himself the Head of the body, 
from whom all the life of every member of it flows. 
Life is not, indeed, in the body, and in fellowship with 
the body, because it is the body (that were to make the 
church life-giving, when in fact it is only life-circula- 
ting, life-distributing), but it is in it because it is in 
union with the Head, the one fountain of life for it, 
and for every member of it in particular ; divided from 
whom they are as branches broken off from the true 
Vine, and which can only wither and die. This, then, 
is our first lesson, that we do not yield to the tempta- 
tions, and at certain periods of our spiritual course 
they will not be slight temptations, which would lead 
us to separate ourselves, if not wholly, yet in part, 
from the body of Christ, and to set up a selfish inde- 
pendent life of our own. 

Take another lesson, or, in fact, only the same, re- 
garded from another point of view. If we are thus 
members one of another, many are the debts which, as 
such, we owe the one to the other. Thus we owe 
one another truth. You remember the words of St. 
Paul : " Speak every man truth with his neighbor 
and why ? " for we are members one of another." He 
found the motive here, and so should we. In the natu- 
ral body, the members do not play false one to another. 



ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. 



235 



What the ear hears, it conveys faithfully to the mind ; 
the eye does not see safety when there is danger, — a 
plain, for instance, when there is a precipice, — or see- 
ing, refuse to give notice, or give false notice, of what 
it has seen to the other members. The natural body 
could not exist, it must presently perish, but for this 
which we may call the truthful dealing of the several 
parts among themselves. And we too, in Christ's 
spiritual body, we in like manner owe this truth to one 
another ; that we do not natter one of us the other in 
his sins ; — nay, brethren, how good it would be if 
Christians would resolve not to suffer one another in 
their sins. Of course in this loving rebuke of which I 
speak, time, and place, and years, and condition, and 
many other points, would have to be considered ; and 
there is a time to keep silence, as well as a time to 
speak : but yet, with all these abatements made, I am 
sure that if we did more feel that we were members 
one of another, and owed, therefore, the truth to one 
another, we should be acting a manlier, braver, more 
consistent part ; by some seasonable word we might 
elevate the whole spiritual life of a brother, or perhaps 
arrest him in the sin which in the end shall be the total 
shipwreck of his soul. 

But once more. If we are members of one body, 
we owe love one to another. In the natural body, if 
one member suffers, all the others suffer with it. The 
pain and discomfort of one liml? is, in fact, the pain 
and discomfort of the whole body. So should it be in 
the spiritual body. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, the Head of that body, so realized his own fel- 



236 



ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. 



lowship with the other members, so felt that when they 
suffered He suffered, that when they were wounded He 
was wounded, — that, as you may remember, when He 
arrested Saul the persecutor in mid career, it was with 
these words, " Why persecutest thou Me ?" He did 
not say, " Why hast thou stoned Stephen, and haled 
other of my servants to prison and to death ?" He did 
not say, " Why persecutest thou my members ?" But 
He, in heaven exalted forever far above all the spite 
and malice of evil men, could yet say, " Why persecu- 
test thou Me ?" not " my saints," but " Me." So was 
He afflicted in their affliction j so did the blows aimed 
at them light upon Him. And Paul was in this, as in 
all else, a follower of Christ : " Who is weak, and I 
am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?' 7 
Let 2is ask of G-od a tenderer, livelier, more earnest 
sense of the sorrows, needs, perplexities, distresses, 
fears, trials of our brethren ; a heart readier to feel, a 
hand readier, where this may be, to help ; that in this 
matter of sympathy or fellow-feeling we may not forget, 
to so great an extent as we often do, that we are mem- 
bers one of another. 

But again, if the church, being thus one, has yet 
many members, and they all have different offices therein, 
which have been appointed them by Christ, we owe 
honor one to another. Let us learn to honor all men 
in their office, and because Christ has placed them 
there, — not those only whose offices are great and 
glorious in the eyes of the world — kings, and princes, 
and prelates, and nobles, men of wealth and men of 
genius, those from one cause or another the chief of 



ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. 



237 



the earth, but men of low estate, men of mean abilities, 
for their work's sake ; remembering always that it is 
not the greatness of a man's position, nor yet the great- 
ness of the talents which in that position he may use, 
which makes a man great in the eyes of God, — this is 
one of the world's lies, — but the zeal, the faithfulness, 
the diligence with which he actually fulfils the duties 
of that position, be it high or be it low. He that shuns 
and shirks the task of his life, shuffles it from him, does 
it deceitfully, or does not do it at all, is base, dishon- 
orable, contemptible in the sight of God, though he 
wore a king's crown or an emperor's mantle • while 
the poorest digger and delver of the earth, the meanest 
and smallest among us, if faithful in his narrow line 
of things, is honorable in his sight, shall be crowned 
with glory and honor even before men, in that day 
when first shall be last, and last first. Be it ours, in 
part at least, to anticipate that coming day ; to honor 
all men, since all were made in the image of God ; but 
to honor above all, with the best honor and reverence 
which our hearts can render, and without respect of 
persons, those in Christ's church, be they high or low, 
in first place or in last, weak members or strong, learned 
or simple, who are seeking to approve themselves and 
their work in the sight of God the All-seeing ; and 
may we esteem it the main business of our lives to be 
ourselves found in the number of these, and thus to 
obtain that " Well done," which shall be as freely 
given to the faithful dispenser of one talent as of ten 
or of a hundred. 



SERMON XXII. 



ON THE DEATH OP GENERAL HAVELOCK.* 

A centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man, and 
one that feared God. — Acts x. 1, 2. 

SINCE we assembled for worship within these walls 
last Sunday, there has come a great, I may say a 
national, sorrow upon us ; and tidings of a sad surprise 
have been heard with a pang of pain in every corner 
of this English land. Among many noble warriors, 
he whom we deemed, whom not improbably we rightly 
deemed, the noblest of all, has passed from us. Eng- 
land, Christian England, is at this moment mourning 
for that one among lier Indian sons of whom she was 
proudest of all, and mourning the more because she 
had no opportunity of telling him how near to her 
heart he was, and how deeply engraven his heroic 
deeds, and he the author of them, would be upon her 
memory, how safely enshrined in her affections, for- 
ever. 

It seems to me that the occasion will not be an un- 
fitting one to say something on the character, happily 
by no means an uncommon one now, of the Christian 
soldier ; and the thought will be a calming and a 
soothing one, that he whom England is so mourning 

* Preached January 10, 1858. 

(238) 



DEATH OF GENERAL HAVELOCK. 



239 



now eminently realized this character ; and that in 
whatever light we may at this moment regard it, far 
sadder things may well come to pass than this of a 
Christian man dying in the fulfilment of his duty, hav- 
ing accomplished a mighty work, having won a na- 
tion's gratitude, leaving behind him an unspotted name, 
and exchanging a miserable scene of tumult and toil, 
of confusion and blood, exchanging this in a moment 
for the rest and Paradise of his God. 

But before we can hope to say anything to the point 
on the character of the Christian soldier, something 
must needs be said first on that serious and terrible 
business in which he is engaged, — I mean upon war. 
We can only judge Mm aright, when we are sure that 
we judge aright the task which he has in this world 
set himself to do. Now there are two aspects in which 
war may be, in which practically it is, regarded. There 
is first theirs who regard it purely and simply as an 
outcoming of the spirit of Cain, of the first murderer, as 
nothing better than murder upon an enormous scale, as 
that which no amount of provocation, of loss or danger 
or dishonor to be averted, can justify ; an uttermost 
denial of Christ and his Gospel of peace on the part of 
all who engage in it. They w.ho in this way regard it 
would perhaps admit that one party engaged in a war 
may be more guilty than the other, but would not the 
less affirm that both must be deeply guilty ; and of 
course, in their view, the crime which is necessarily 
involved in war extends to every one who takes any 
willing share in it. It is for every soldier an utterly 
unblessed and wicked trade, and never can be anything 



240 



DEATH OF GENERAL HAVELOCK. 



beside. Such is the judgment of the Quaker about 
war ; such too the judgment of many others who, with- 
out adopting all his convictions, sti 11 consent with him 
in this : and they who maintain this position usually 
seek to strengthen their case by pictures, only too true, 
of the hideous horrors which war draws after it in its 
train — the wasted homestead, the desolated hearth, 
the burning village, the stormed city, the children left 
fatherless, and the wives widows ; the field of battle, 
with its thousands made in God's image who lie maimed 
or mutilated, dead and dying there ; and worse than 
all these, for they are moral evils, the recklessness of 
life, the savagery, the brutality which war generates, 
and in far wider circles than that of those immediately 
engaged in it. • 

But even those horrors (and 1 believe no words can 
paint them to the full, and all which we imagine about 
war falls short of the terrible reality) ought not to 
remove us from another and truer view of what war is, 
and of the light in which it should be regarded by us. 
We do not deny, on the contrary we too affirm, that 
war may be, and that it often is, this enormous wicked- 
ness, which those who would condemn altogether assert 
that it is always ; we too affirm that every needless 
unrighteous war, undertaken out of greed, or pride, or 
ambition, or love of glory, or lust of dominion, is a 
crime huger, darker, deeper, entailing a more fearful 
guilt on its authors, be they princes or people, — and 
they are quite as often the last as the first, — than any 
other in the dread catalogue of human crimes, because 
it is a crime on a far more gigantic scale. 



DEATH OF GENERAL HAVELOCK. 241 

But this does not hinder us from affirming also that 
war may be a terrible necessity, — a duty which a nation 
must not shun or put back, as it would have the bless- 
ing of God upon it, — a most righteous thing, an act of 
faith in the Almighty Governor of the world, an appeal 
to Him and to his righteousness, when the appeal to 
any human tribunal is possible no longer. It is, I say, 
this act of faith ; for it is a bringing the matter at 
issue into the court of heaven. It is a saying, Let God 
decide, the Lord of Hosts, the God of battles, the Giver 
of victory. Let Him weigh us and you in the balances, 
and let the balance, in which justice is wanting, kick the 
beam, even as we are confident it will do. Then, too, 
when wickedness has risen to so prodigious a height and 
strength that it defies and despises the restraints of hu- 
man law, when the wand of justice is broken, and the 
voice of the judge is mute, then the sword must step in, 
— the sword, we do not fear to call it in such a case, of 
the Lord, even though it maybe wielded by the hands of 
infirm sinful men, themselves, very likely, not all of them, 
nor any of them," not even the best among them, wholly 
free from the very guilt which they punish in others ; 
but who yet, in punishing the far higher wickedness of 
others, are doing a work of God, a work of righteous- 
ness which it were woe to them if they, out of fear, or 
a shunning of the task and toil, or a lack of righteous 
indignation against evil, did deceitfully, or left undone 
altogether. What if the children of Israel, in the time 
of the Judges, had left unpunished the hideous outrage 
of the men of Gibeah, and of the Benjamites, who, 
making common part with them, in this way became 
11 



242 



DEATH OF GENERAL HAVELOCK. 



partakers of their sin ?* If they had left these wicked 
men unpunished, had shrunk from the task of punish- 
ing, — and you may remember they only did it at the 
cost of some of their best blood, — would God, the right- 
eous Lord, have left them unpunished ? We may find, 
I think, an answer to this question, if only we will call 
to mind how it fared with the one city which would 
take no part or share in executing that righteous 
doom.f Or would He leave us unpunished if, under 
any pretext, any plea, we had left unfulfilled in India 
the terrible commission which He has given us of 
avenging the innocent blood ; which, being shed, defies 
a land with a defilement which only the blood of the 
guilty can cleanse away ? 

Then, too, when some make so much of the horrors 
which war brings in its train, v they do not err in dwell- 
ing upon these, and making much of them (none can 
exaggerate them) ; they only err in dwelling exclu- 
sively upon these. War has its gains as well as its 
losses. If it calls out in baser natures some of the 
worst and most devilish passions of the human heart, 
it kindles in others elevating and ennobling sentiments 
of duty and self-sacrifice, which otherwise they would 
not at all, or would have very feebly, known ; lessons 
are learned in this stern school which would never 
have been learned in any other, but which no nation 
can afford to forego. For, indeed, what would a nation 
be, over which for century after century the great an- 
guish and agony of a war, with all its elevating emo- 



* Judges xx. 



f Judges xxi. 8-10. 



DEATH OF GENERAL HAVELOCK. 



243 



tions and purifying sorrows, had never passed ; in 
which wives had never given their husbands, nor 
mothers their sons, nor sisters their brothers, to the 
battle-field, to labors, to wounds, and it might be, to 
death ; happy if they might receive these beloved ones 
safe and sound again ; but not wholly unhappy if in 
duty's and in honor's path these had ended, well, and 
paid even with their lives the debt which they owed to 
their native land ? How mean, how sordid, how selfish, 
would the whole spirit and temper of such a nation 
become, its heart unmanned, its moral nerves and sin- 
ews unstrung ! Oh, no ! the nations cannot do without 
the severe discipline of this terrible thing. For na- 
tions, as little as individuals, can do without tribula- 
tion ; and what is war but tribulation on an enormous 
scale, and visiting not, as at other times, this house- 
hold, and then that, but visiting hundreds and thou- 
sands of households, bringing to them distress and 
anguish at the same instant. Fearful remedy as it 
must needs be esteemed, war is a remedy against worse 
evils — sloth, selfishness, love of ease, contempt of honor, 
worship of material things, — all which, but for it, would 
invade and occupy the heart of a people, and at length 
eat out that heart altogether. 

And as the reactive influence which war exercises 
on a nation generally, that undertakes it in a righteous 
cause, is exalting, ennobling, purifying, so still more 
marked is its influence often upon those who are di- 
rectly engaged in it. Some, of course, are hardened 
and brutalized by their familiarity with suffering, by 
the necessity which they often lie under of themselves 



244 



DEATH OF GENERAL HAVELOCK. 



inflicting it ; but many also there are, like " The Happy 
Warrior" of the poet, 

"Who doomed to go in company with pain 
And fear and bloodshed, miserable train, 
Turn their necessity to glorious gain ;" 

and who are only made more tender and more gentle 
thereby. 

It certainly is not a little remarkable, that of the 
four centurions, or officers of the Roman army, who are 
mentioned in the New Testament, every one comes 
before us in a favorable light, has more or less honor- 
able mention made of him. To take the least notable 
case, that of Julius, the centurion who had Paul in 
charge as a prisoner during the long and perilous jour- 
ney from Asia to Rome. He " courteously entreated 
Paul," was evidently attracted to him, had him in 
honor, or even in affection, would suffer, as far as in 
him lay, no harm to befall him." But still more note- 
worthy, in his readiness to receive a profound religious 
impression, is that centurion who was charged to over- 
see the due carrying out of the sentence of crucifixion 
pronounced against our Lord. He had been no care- 
less, no indifferent watcher of all that passed upon that 
cross, as is abundantly witnessed by that exclamation 
which, when the Lord had breathed out his spirit, he 
uttered, " Certainly this was a righteous man or, as 
another Evangelist reports it, " Truly this was the Son 
of God."t He who at such a moment could make such 

* Acts xxvi. 3, 43. f Luke xxiii. 47 ; c£ Matt, xxvii. 54. 



DEATH OF GENERAL HAYELOCK. 245 

a confession was not very far from the kingdom of 
God. But more notable than either of these are two 
other centurions, who come prominently forward in 
the evangelical history. There is, first, that one in the 
Gospels, glorious in his humility, " I am not worthy 
that Thou shouldst enter under my roof/ 7 — glorious in 
his faith, "say in a word, and my servant shall be 
healed of whom Christ Himself bore this^estimony, 
1 1 have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel."* 
And last of all, there is that other, " Cornelius, a cen- 
turion of the band called the Italian band, a devout 
man, and one that feared God with all his house, which 
gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God 
alway to whom was vouchsafed the honor that he 
should be the firstfruits of the Gentile world. 

Surely, with these examples before us, we shall 
scarcely affirm that the profession of a soldier is, and 
must be, unfavorable to the spiritual life. On the con- 
trary, I am persuaded there are very many professions 
and callings in which there is far more imminent dan- 
ger that the very work which a man has to do may 
choke and strangle the life of God in his soul ; while 
I think that the experience of every one of us will bear 
witness that among those whom we have known, edu- 
cated to this profession of arms, we have found some 
of the gentlest, the most humane, the most considerate, 
the most careful to avoid inflicting unnecessary pain 
upon others, that we have ever been privileged to 
know ; not to say that among them are to be numbered 



Luke vii. 1-9, 



246 



DEATH OF GENERAL HAVELOCK. 



many of the most earnest and zealous for the spread 
of Christ's kingdom, many who would most rejoice if 
that kingdom of peace might come, abolishing for ever 
pride and rapine and lust and cruelty and covetousness 
and ambition and wrong ; and therefore abolishing 
with these that dreadful business of theirs, which is 
properly the putting down and repressing with a 
strong hand these outcomings of human corruption, 
before th?y have turned this earth into a hell. 

It is such a man, and one, I believe, among many 
such, who has just passed from us, from the field of his 
fame, from the gratitude of his country, from the hon- 
ors with which it hoped to attest this gratitude to 
him and before the world. Many things have been 
granted to us and to him ; but some have been denied. 
To us it has not been granted to welcome home, as we 
fain would have welcomed, him who in darkest and 
most perilous hour upheld so well the honor of Eng- 
land ; who, inspiring others with the confidence which 
he felt himself, took no account of odds, for he knew 
that the battle is the Lord's, and that the Lord can 
save by many or by few ; who, rolling back the fierce 
tide of war, and the first who did this, avenged where 
he could not save, crowded into a few days victories 
which would have illustrated a life, and then told of 
deeds which will make the ears of Englishmen to tin- 
gle and their hearts to burn to the end of time, as 
though they had been common things, as though there 
had been nothing unusual about them. 

Some things also were denied to him. It was 
not given him to see the final triumph of right and 



DEATH OF GENERAL HAVELOCK. 



247 



truth, whereunto lie had himself so mainly contribut- 
ed ; to repose upon laurels won ; to learn the place 
which he had for ever attained, as one of England's 
worthies, in the heart and affections of her people. 
This was not given him, nor yet to share (which he 
would have esteemed* far more highly) in that mighty 
effort presently, as we trust, to be made, for the bring- 
ing of a new India out of the old, a Christian India 
" ut of that heathen India in which we have acquiesced 
too long. 

But if something has been withheld, much has been 
granted both to us and to him. Much to us ; one 
more example set before us of work modestly, simply, 
nobly, grandly done ; of a man fit for high place who 
had embraced contentedly a low ; who would have 
been well satisfied, as everything declares, to have lived 
and died unknown to fame, simply doing his duty and 
looking for no earthly reward ; one more example of 
heroic daring, of the deeds which are wrought by faith, 
so that in these times also those that put their trust in 
the living God out of weakness are made strong, wax 
valiant in fight, turn to flight the armies of the aliens. 
Henceforward there is another star shining bright and 
unsullied in the firmament of England's fame, and 
beckoning onward all that gaze on it in the paths of 
truth and virtue and honor. 

To him also much was granted. When fatigue and 
weariness and watching were at length breaking down 
the tabernacle of his earthly body, he at any rate knew 
that those to save whom he had dared so much were in 
safety at last. If he did not actually also know, he 



248 



DEATH OF GENERAL HAVELOCK. 



must have confidently guessed, the place which he had 
won in his nation's heart. And, far better than all 
this, he could take up, we humbly yet confidently be- 
lieve, as few could do, the triumphant words of the 
Apostle, in contemplation of his approaching dissolu- 
tion, and the goal, now so close, 'of his earthly career. 
He too could say, " I have fought a good fight ; " not 
the fight only with wicked men, but the fight of faith, 
in which he had overcome the world. He too could 
say, " I have finished my course ; " * not that course, 
glorious as it was, which brought him through oppos- 
ing hosts to the walls of Lucknow, to the city of 
strife, to the city of his death ; but that course which 
was bringing him to a better city, the city of peace, 
the city of life, the city of the living God, the new 
Jerusalem which is in heaven. He too could rejoice 
that there were laid up for him, not those fading 
wreaths, those corruptible crowns, with which we had 
fondly thought to encircle his brows, but that his 
should henceforth be that crown of righteousness 
which God, the judge of all, imparts to every one that 
has striven lawfully, and continued a faithful soldier 
and servant of Christ to his life's end. 

Let us, my brethren, thank and praise God for all 
his gifts to us, and among his choicest and best for 
the great and good men whom He has raised up, whom 
his Spirit has quickened, and stirred to noble exploits, 
whom He has kept to the end, who have entered into 
his rest, and whose faith and patience we are invited 
to follow, that we may of the same mercy enter into 
the same heavenly rest. 



SERMON XXIII. 



GOD SEARCHING OUT OUR IDOLS. 

If we have forgotten the name of our God, or holden up our hands 
to any strange god, shall not God search it out? for He know- 
eth the very secrets of the heart. — Psalm xliv. 21 (Prayer-Book 
verson.) 

IT is good for us that we remember often that great 
final judgment act, which shall at length, and once for 
all, be accomplished ; when He who is the Judge of 
all shall come with all his holy angels at the end of 
the world, and shall assign to each that portion and 
that place which shall be his thenceforth and for ever- 
more. And yet it is also good for us to remember that 
He, the same Judge who shall judge the world in 
righteousness then, is also judging it in righteousness 
now ; that He has not deferred all judgment to that 
future, it may be far-distant day ; that He will not 
then, for the first time, reward his faithful servants, or 
repay his foes to their face. It is good for us to re- 
member that now his " eyes are running to and fro on 
the earth ; and He lifting up and casting down ; rec- 
ompensing and punishing, promptly and swiftly, and, 
so to speak, upon the spot ; leaving much, it is true, to 
be redressed and adjusted and balanced, and finally 

11* (249) 



250 



GOD SEARCHING OUT OUR IDOLS. 



set upon the square, on that great coming day ; but by 
no means deferring and postponing all. Even now his 
judgments are in all the world. It is for man, and not 
for God, that the word of the Apostle stands good, 
" Judge nothing before the time." There is no danger 
that God should judge before the time, who knows all, 
and sees all, and weighs all ; and it nearly concerns 
us that we do not, in the contemplation of a future 
judgment which He tvill execute, lose sight of a pres- 
ent which He is executing. It is this which I would 
invite you to contemplate to-clay, and with this view 
have chosen for my text the words of the Psalmist, 
who plainly contemplates such a present judgment in 
these words of his : " If we have forgotten the name of 
our God, and holden up our hands to any strange god, 
shall not God search it out ? for He knoweth the very 
secrets of the heart." 

The subject naturally and easily divides itself into 
three parts. There is, first, the sin, — forgetting God, 
and holding up the hands to some strange god. There 
is, secondly, the certainty of the discovery and punish- 
ment of the sin, — " Shall not God search it out ?" 
And, thirdly, the ground of this certainty, because He 
with whom we have to do is a discerner of the thoughts 
and intents of men, — " He knoweth the very secrets 
of the heart." 

Let us consider these in their order. And first, the 
sin. The Psalmist contemplates this under two as- 
pects, — as a turning/rom the true God, and then a 
turning to a strange or false god. They are not two 
sins, but one and the same sin, contemplated first on 



GOD SEARCHING OUT OUR IDOLS. 251 

one side, and then upon the other. On its negative 
side, it is a forgetting the name of our God. Forget- 
fulness of God is continually set forth in Scripture as 
the chief feature and characteristic of ungodly men. 
God is not in all their thoughts. Those who defy 
Him, who set themselves in conscious opposition to 
Him, as in battle-array, or who speak great words 
against Him, who say out, like Pharaoh, " Who is the 
Lord, that we should obey him ? " — sucjj may be com- 
paratively few ; but those who forget him, who say, 
if not in as many words, yet inwardly in their hearts, 
" Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of 
thy ways," are many. Strange that in a world like 
this, so full of God, with everywhere the footprints of 
his power and his love to be seen, the rustling of the 
skirts of his robe to be heard ; strange that in a world 
where God speaks to men in such a multitude of ways, 
ever changing his voice that He may be heard the bet- 
ter, calling to them by joy and by sorrow, by nature 
and by grace, by life and by death, by mercies and by 
judgments, by his works and by his Word, any should 
contrive to forget Him. It would seem to us stran- 
ger, more inexplicable still, if we had not the sad ex- 
perience of our own hearts to tell us how easily this 
may be done, how easily the Giver is lost sight of in 
the gift, the Creator in the creature ; what oblivion of 
Him is continually seeking to creep over us every one. 
Even those who desire to remember Him have contin- 
ually to upbraid themselves that they forget Him too 
often, do not set Him at all so constantly before them 
as they ought. How, then, must it be with those who 



252 GOD SEARCHING OUT OUR IDOLS. 

have no such desire? who, if they think upon God, 
are troubled, say to Him, when He meets them at una- 
wares in their lives, as wicked Ahab said to the proph- 
et Elijah, " Hast thou found me, mine enemy ?" and 
are then best pleased when they are able not to think 
of Him at all ? 

But these who forget Him, the true God, they must 
still have their god. Xo man can be without his god ; 
if he have noj^the true God, to bless and sustain him, 
he will have some false god, to delude and to betray 
him. The Psalmist knew this, and therefore he joined 
so closely the forgetting the name of our God, and 
holding up our hands to some strange god. For every 
man has something in which he hopes, on which he 
leans, to which he retreats and retires, with which he 
fills up his thoughts in empty spaces of time ; when he 
is alone, when he lies sleepless on his bed, when he is 
not pressed with other thoughts ; to which he betakes 
himself in sorrow or trouble, as that from which he 
shall draw comfort and strength, — his fortress, his cit- 
adel, his defence ; and has not this good right to be 
called his god ? Man was made to lean on the Crea- 
tor ; but if not on Him, then he leans on the creature 
in one shape or another. The ivy cannot grow alone ; 
it must twine round some support or other ; if not the 
goodly oak, then the ragged thorn ; round any dead 
stick whatever, rather than have no stay nor support 
at all. It is even so with the heart and affections of 
man ; if they do not twine around God, they must 
twine around some meaner thing. Blessed is the man 
whose hope is in God ; but whosoever is not hoping in 



GOD SEARCHING OUT OUR IDOLS. 253 

Him, is hoping in some idol ; is saying to money, or 
to fame, or to pleasure, or to some other embodiment 
of this present evil world, Thou art my confidence, 
thou wilt make me happy ; or if not this, thou wilt 
hinder me from being wholly unhappy. A man's wor- 
ship of these idols, one or more, may be very secret ; 
he may withdraw it from the sight of others, clown in 
the deep of his heart ; he may withdraw it almost from 
his own sight ; but it is there ; it is going on continu- 
ally ; and there is One who sees and takes note of all. 
And this brings me to the second branch of my sub- 
ject, which is this : 

God will search out these idols, these strange gods, 
to which we lift up our hands, rendering to them the 
service, the love, the fealty, the affection, which we 
justly owe to Him, the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. They are every one of them an image 
of jealousy, provoking to jealousy ; * and He will not 
fail to show them for what they are ; to show them in 
their true nothingness, how unable to bless, how impo- 
tent to save ; He will make it plain that the man who 
has trusted in them has trusted in a lie, in vain things 
which cannot profit nor deliver ; in some wretched 
Dagon, which, so soon as it is brought face to face 
with the living God, presently lies along, a maimed 
and mutilated stump, on the threshold of its own 
temple, f 

Brethren, is not this of which I speak, going forward 
continually, God searching our idols out, dragging 



Ezek. viii. 3. 



f 1 Sam. v. 3, 4. 



254 GOD SEARCHING OUT OUR IDOLS. 



them to the light, putting them, and us who trusted in 
them, to an open shame? We thought perhaps that 
our service of them was so hidden that none could 
know of it ; we flattered ourselves that it would escape 
even his eyes ; but it has not, and in due time He 
makes plain that it has not. Thus, one man is greedy 
of honor, of the world's reputation, to be highly spoken 
of and highly esteemed of men. If he could obtain 
this honor, he has cared little for the honor which 
proceedeth of God, has been well contented to go 
without this. Reputation has been his idol, his strange 
god, to which he has burnt his incense and lifted up 
his hands ; but God has seen and searched it out ; and 
this man, greedy of honor, living upon the world's 
praise, to whom this is the very breath of his nostrils, 
is brought by some fault or folly to discredit and dis- 
honor, even before the world ; his idol has been 
searched out, and- perhaps before half his earthly 
course is done, lies in shattered fragments, never to be * 
reunited again, at his feet. 

Or a man's sin will assume sometimes another and 
a subtler form. It is not the honor of the world, but 
the honor of the church, which he desires, to be held 
in high reputation by good men, by the excellent of 
the earth. But even this may become a snare, it often 
has become a snare, when it has been forgotten that 
every man is but vanity, that God is the one fountain 
of honor, that He only weighed the spirits, that unless 
we have his "Well done," the "Well done" of all 
the saints that ever lived would profit us nothing. 
And how often God breaks this idol ; and he who has 



GOD SEARCHING OUT OUR IDOLS. 255 

duly sought this honor of men (for we may unduly seek 
the honor even of good men), he becomes, through some 
fault of his, or some misunderstanding of theirs, or both, 
an object of their dislike, their suspicion, and their scorn. 

What need to speak of our other idols, which God 
in like manner searches out, and shows in their true 
vanity, and as having no help in them? One man 
trusts in his wealth : he says to his gold, Thou art my 
confidence ; and this, in which he has trusted, makes 
itself wings and vanishes away ; or else, in a bitterer 
mockery still, his wealth stays with him, but at the 
same time God mingles, from some other quarter, such 
a drop of bitterness in his cup, plants such a thorn in 
his pillow, makes for him a desolate and joyless home, 
takes away the desire of the eyes with a stroke, that 
he can have no pleasure in his worldly prosperity ; 
and the world, as in cruel irony of its votary and ser- 
vant, seeming to give him everything, yet in fact gives 
him nothing ; for it has withholden the one thing 
which would alone have given worth to everything 
beside ; and many a poorest hind that toils for his 
day's wages in the field has more joy in his life than 
he. What need of other examples of this ? The am- 
bitious man, who would fain live in the eyes of the 
world, is thrust back into some place of obscurity ; 
and the proud man is overwhelmed with humiliations, 
is dragged as in the mire ; and in these, and a thou- 
sand other ways, God searches out those secret idols 
of men, those strange gods, to which they have lifted 
up their hands, on which they have leant their spirits, 
when they should have lifted up their hands and leant 



256 



GOD SEARCHING OUT OUR IDOLS. 



their hearts only upon Him. He does it in anger, and 
He does it in love ; in a loving anger, for the two may 
be most nearly united : in anger, that they should have 
forsaken Him, the fountain of living waters ; in love, 
that He may draw them away from the broken cisterns 
which will hold no water, to drink of the waters of 
life, of those waters which should be in them a well of 
water springing up into everlasting life. 

Oftentimes when the blow of this loving anger had 
lighted, when the man's idol has been overthrown, the 
world pities him as an innocent sufferer, or, at any 
rate, as one who has not provoked this chastisement by 
any special provocation upon his part. But he him- 
self knows better. Reading his past life in the light 
of the present judgment, he is able to trace the secret 
idolatries which have been searched out at length, and 
which have brought this chastisement upon him. The 
arrow that pierced him, it was he himself that fledged 
it ; and he sees it plainly ; that his own sin has found 
him out, and that he is reaping in sorrow now, because 
he sowed in sin before. Others may miss, but he can- 
not miss, the mysterious links which bind his sorrow 
and his sin together. 

But thirdly, why and how is God able so surely to 
do this, exactly to find out, as He so continually does, 
that wherein we have sinned the most, and to plague 
us in and through the same ? not merely to burn our 
idols with fire and grind them to powder, but to strew 
this bitter powder on the very waters which we must 
drink ? * The Psalmist tells us how : " For He know- 

* Exod. xxxii. 20. 



GOD SEARCHING OUT OUR IDOLS. 



257 



eth the very secrets of the heart ; — because there is no 
darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of 
iniquity can hide themselves ; because He is the same 
God who took Ezekiel of old, and showed him the 
secret idolatries of Jerusalem, and said to him, " Son 
of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of Israel do 
in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery ? 
for they say, The Lord seeth us not ; the Lord hath 
forsaken the earth,"* — while yet the Lord, for all this, 
did see, and as He saw, avenged. And our chambers 
of imagery, He beholds them too ; and the darkness in 
which the worship of our idols may be conducted 
there, it is light, and no darkness, to Him. And those 
chambers of imagery, He will break them down ; un- 
less we will be beforehand with Him, unless we will 
break them down ourselves, and throw down the idols, 
the images of jealousy which provoke Him to jealousy, 
with our own hands, before the day of his visitation 
has arrived. 

For indeed, what are our lessons, or rather, what is 
our one great lesson from all which has been spoken ? 
It is this, — to beware of idols. With these weightiest 
words, as you may remember, with this affectionate 
exhortation, the beloved disciple concluded the apos- 
tolic admonitions of his first and longest epistle : " Lit- 
tle children, beware of idols." We may well beware 
of them ; for let us lay this to heart as certainly true, 
that the children of Israel, when they burned incense 
to Baal and to Ashtaroth and to all the host of heaven, 
were not laying up more certain plagues for them- 

* Ezek. viii. 12 



258 



GOD SEARCHING OUT OUR IDOLS. 



selves against the coming time, than we are for our- 
selves, when we lift up our hands to any strange god, 
and in heart (though it may not be outwardly in act) 
depart from the true and living God. The temptations 
to this are great, and are ever making themselves felt. 
The false gods of this world, they may be worshipped 
with an unrenewed and worldly heart. The worship 
of them falls in with all that is worldly and sensual 
within us, just as Moloch of old could be worshipped 
by the cruel, and Ashtaroth by the impure — their 
worship indeed was cruelty and impurity — while the 
God of Israel, He said to Ms worshippers, " Be ye 
holy ; " He demanded of them then, as of us now* 
that they should lift up to Him holy hands, should 
worship Him in spirit and in truth. The temptation, 
therefore, is great, to worship some golden image which 
the prince of this world has reared, and to which he 
summons all to bow down ; or if not that, yet some 
peculiar idol, which we have secretly enthroned in the 
profaned sanctuary of our heart ; and who that knows 
his own heart will dare to say that it is easy to resist 
this temptation, in all the thousand subtle forms which 
it knows how to assume ? Indeed, we could never do 
it, if we had not on our side One who has said, " If 
thou wilt hearken unto Me, there shall no strange god 
be in thee, neither shalt thou worship any other god ; " 
who has promised us again, " The idols I will utterly 
abolish." Well for us if He do but abolish them ; if 
we have had grace given us to separate ourselves from 
our strange gods, saying like Ephraim, " What have I 
to do any more with idols ? " and to return, though it 



GOD SEARCHING OUT OUE IDOLS. 259 

may be naked and mounded, to Him who stript and 
smote us, but stript that He might clothe, and smote 
that He might heal. Well for us, if the grace is given 
us so to use a time of visitation \ but if, on the con- 
trary, we stay upon our idols still, even after He has 
shown them to be nothing worth : if we cleave to 
them, make common cause with them, are angry with 
Him who robs us of them, crying like one of old, 
" Thou hast taken away my gods which I made, and 
what have I more ? " * — if we continue thus mad upon 
them, what help is there then, but that in the end He 
should abolish us and our idols together ; which just 
judgment of his, may we never by our sins provoke. 



Judg. xviii. 24. 



SERMON XXIY. 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 

For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifesta- 
tion of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, 
not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in 
hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the 
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of 
God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth, and travail- 
eth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves 
also, which have the firstfraits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan 
within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption 
of our body. — Rom. viii. 19-23. 

IT is plain that the truths with which the great Apos- 
tle is here dealing are large and magnificent, reach- 
ing from one end of time to the other ; that he is 
embracing in the circle of his vision the wants and 
woes, the hopes and expectations, not of the church of 
God alone, but of the whole world, so far as it yearns 
for, and thus shows itself capable of, redemption. At 
the same time, it must be owned that the very grandeur 
of his thoughts, the lofty and unusual courses in which 
they are travelling, shed a certain obscurity over his 
words ; and thus, no doubt, many read them, or hear 
them read, and attach little definite meaning to them. 
We may very fitly, therefore, occupy ourselves with 
them to-day, and inquire a little what their precise 
scope and intention is. 

All, I think, will acknowledge that the right under- 

(260) 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 



261 



standing of the passage must mainly depend on our 
seizing the true meaning of the word " creature/' which 
recurs in it four times ; for though we have on one oc- 
casion varied the word, and used " creation" in our Ver- 
sion, there is no corresponding variation in the origi- 
nal. What, then, is this " creature," which was made 
subject to vanity, all parts of which groan and travail 
in pain together until now, which waits for the mani- 
festation of the sons of God, which shall one day be 
delivered from the bondage of corruption, and become 
a sharer in their glorious liberty, or the liberty of their 
glory ? I will not trouble you with the various ex- 
planations which have been offered ; least of all, as 
all better interpreters are now pretty well agreed upon 
the matter. They find a key to the answer in the fact 
that the creature is in this very passage set over against 
the church of the redeemed ; not only it, the creature, 
groans and travails, " but ourselves also, which have 
the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan 
within ourselves." The creature, then, is every thing 
capable of redemption, but which is not as yet re- 
deemed ; all which is outside of the church of Christ, 
and has more or less the consciousness, or the dim in- 
stinct at any rate, that it is outside, that it is submitted 
to a bondage of corruption, that it has been made sub- 
ject to vanity, that it was meant for something better 
than its present condition is ; and whose yearnings 
and cries and voices of misery, whose groanings and 
travailings, are indeed feelings after an unknown 
Christ, and after such a deliverance as He alone can 
bring in. 



262 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 



Now if the creature, in St. Paul's use of the word 
here, be thus inclusive, if it embrace all this, it is plain 
that the heathen world must be a part, and a large, in- 
deed the largest, part of it. And may it not be said 
with highest truth of it, that it " groaneth and travail- 
eth ? " What voices of pain and distress reach us from 
the whole heathen world, from all the world, whether 
nominally Christian or not, as it is out of Christ, and 
ignorant of Him. What confessions of emptiness and 
vanity, of misery and despair. Some here present will 
have read, no doubt, collections of Greek and Latin 
epitaphs, as they have been gathered one by one from 
the tombs and monuments of those dead for whom the 
Son of God had not, as yet, brought life and immortal- 
ity to light. It is when reading them, I think, that 
one best understands all the force of the Apostle's 
words, when he characterizes the heathen as " without 
hope in the world ; " for with what a blank despair did 
tliey commit their beloved to the earth, following them 
to the brink of the dark grave, and there seeming to 
part with them for ever, and to exchange with them an 
everlasting farewell. 

Think, too, of the institutions of heathen lands. In 
Christian lands the arrangements of society are some- 
times unjust enough ; but in heathen they often are 
nothing less than the permanent embodying of the tyr- 
anny of the strong, of the oppression of the weak ; 
polygamy, for instance, is such ; and slavery, again, is 
such. What cries of anguish have ascended, yea, are 
ascending now, into the ears of the Lord God of Sab- 
aoth from the whole surface of a suffering earth • and 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 



263 



these oftentimes the cries, not of some merely momen- 
tary anguish, of some mighty, but at the same time 
swiftly passing, calamity, — an earthquake, or a pesti- 
lence, or a war, — but of some woe, some cruel wrong, 
reaching from generation to generation, crushing out 
the life of the children as it did that of the fathers be- 
fore them, and as it will do that of the children's chil- 
dren after them. Surely the world out of Christ 
groaneth and travaileth in pain. Take some single 
item in the catalogue of its woes ; take, for instance, 
the slave-hunts, which, as far back as our records 
reach, have spread through the whole of central Afri- 
ca the sense of utter insecurity, terror and desolation 
and death. Try to realize any single fact of one of 
these expeditions, such an incident as no doubt some- 
where in that vast continent occurred last night, and 
will this night occur again. — the peaceful unsuspecting 
village surrounded in the darkness, the blazing huts, 
those that defend themselves slain, the survivors borne 
chained away, one half of them gradually whitening 
the desert with their bones, the remainder separated 
from all they loved, and sold to a bitter bondage over 
the seas, from which only death should set free. Then 
multiply this fact ten thousand times, and that ten 
thousand times ten thousand again, and you may have 
some feeble image of the contributions to the world's 
woe which a single source will yield. Good right had 
the poet, looking back at all the matter for weeping 
which the world's history has afforded, to exclaim, 

" Ocean of Time, thy waters of deep woe 
Are brackish with the salt of human tears 



264 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 



no wonder that the inspired Apostle should declare, 
" the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
together until now." 

But it may be asked, if we apply, in part at least, 
this which St. Paul here affirms of the " creature " to 
the heathen world, where is the " earnest expectation " 
of the creature, whereof he also speaks. Does not the 
world, as it is out of God, and far from God, hug its 
chains, the chains of superstition and error with which 
it is bound, turn upon those who would fain loose or 
break these chains for it, reject, repel, stone them and 
drag them out of its cities? However heavy and 
crushing may be the weight of the world's woe, as it is 
alienated from God, can it be said that there is an} 
cry after a redemption going up to God from it ? an}? 
earnest expectation that a Deliverer and a deliver anco 
may be in store for it ? 

In one sense, certainly, this cannot be affirmed. 
There is no cry which understands itself, which knows 
what it means ; it is a blind longing at the best. And 
yet there is a sense, and a very sublime one, in which 
Christ is " the Desire of all nations and when you 
read of cruel rites and hideous sacrifices practised by 
heathen nations, — of priests of Baal cutting themselves 
with knives, Indian fakirs suspending themselves on 
hooks, worshippers of Molock passing their children 
through fire, — you have a right to say, what these men 
wanted to know was the cross of Christ. They felt, 
and felt rightly, that sin, to be forgiven, must be atoned ; 
that there must be somewhere a sacrifice ; only they 
have made a hideous mistake in regard of the quarter 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 



265 



from whence the sacrifice should come. But for all 
this, there is a wonderful significance in these sacrifices 
of theirs, these offerings of their dearest and their 
best, of the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul. 
Unconscious what they did, they yet witnessed for the 
necessity of the cross of Calvary ; and each blind hea- 
then now who devises sacrifices of expiation for his 
sin, tormenting himself or tormenting others, false and 
detestable as these sacrifices may be, he is yet groping 
in darkness after the cross of Christ, crying, though 
in most inarticulate voice, for that one sacrifice which 
can alone take away the sin of the world. 

We may say the same in respect of the voices of an- 
guish and despair which go up from the world as it is 
crushed under the weight of intolerable woe. The 
utterers of those voices may not understand them, nor 
what they mean ; but He knows, who dwelleth on high ; 
or rather He gives to them a far higher meaning than 
any which properly they possess. He translates them, 
and, translated and transfigured by Him, they become 
prayers, even prayers such as this : "0, that Thou 
wouldst rend the heavens, and come down ; that Thou 
wcruldst cause thy kingdom to come, thy will be done 
upon this woeful earth below as it is in thy blessed 
heaven above." In such a sense as this the Apostle 
can speak of " the earnest expectation of the creature 
waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God " and 
of the Son of God ; even as we know that a day is 
coming when He shall appear, when He shall take 
away the covering that is on the face of all nations, 
the veil which is upon many hearts ; when, in the words, 
12 



266 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 



so significant, of the Psalmist, " All the ends of the 
world shall remember themselves, and be turned to 
the Lord ; " they shall remember themselves, and re- 
member Him ; and all their long forgetfulness of Him, 
the true Lord of their spirits, shall be as a miserable 
guilty dream that has forever passed away. 

Nor may we leave out of sight that there is some- 
times a still distincter longing after a redemption, which 
makes itself felt and heard in a heathen land, — a 
" Come over and help us," which even men can under- 
stand. Who has read the recent travels of our great 
African discoverer, and will deny this ? How weary, 
in parts at least, is Africa of itself ! how weary of its 
cruel customs, of its bloody wars ! What a pathetic 
cry was that with which one of its tribes, hunted and 
scattered and peeled, met him, — " We are weary ; give 
us rest, give us sleep f for under this image of sleep, 
of the calm unbroken sleep, these children of nature 
set forth to themselves the highest blessings they could 
conceive. 

But to pass on : the creature in this passage, while 
it means first and chiefly the heathen, means also, as 
is generally agreed, something more than the heathen. 
It is a larger, more inclusive term. St. Paul ascribes 
here a groaning and travailing, not to men only, but 
to things. Nature too has been made subject to vani- 
ty, has had a yoke and bondage of corruption imposed 
upon it, yearns and longs to be delivered from this 
yoke, may be said to be itself looking forward to the 
day of the restitution of all things, when, at the great 
sabbath of the world which shall at length arrive, it 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 



267 



shall put off the soiled and work-day garments which 
it has so long worn, and put on glorious apparel once 
more. And this is no fancy, that such a change, such 
a regeneration of nature, such a restoration of its orig- ' 
inal glories, shall one day be. The world in the midst 
of which we live, is not now what it was as it came 
from the hands of its Creator. Harsh discords and 
disharmonies have found their way into it ; and make 
themselves everywhere to be heard. What means, for 
instance, the volcano, with its clouds of ashes and 
streams of liquid fire, carrying death and destruction 
to the peaceful towns and villages that reposed in fan- 
cied security at its base ? What mean those fierce 
throes and shakings of the earth, which cause whole 
cities to topple down on their dwellers, and to crush 
them beneath their ruins? What the wild tornadoes, 
which strew the coasts with wrecks of ships and the 
corpses of men ? What, again, the pestilential marsh, 
the very breath of which is fatal to all human life ? 
Or turn your eyes to another province in the kingdom 
of nature, — to the world of animals. Do we not en- 
counter the same discords, the same disharmonies 
there ? Much, very much, to tell us that the state of 
Paradise has disappeared not for man only, but for the 
whole creation, whose destinies were made dependent 
upon his, which fell when he fell, and can only rise 
again when he rises. W^hat intestine war is ever raging 
in this province of nature's kingdom ; how many ani- 
mals live only by the death of others. Behold through 
a magnifying glass a drop of water, and you will find 
in it a little world of terror and agony and suffering, 



268 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 



the pursuer and the pursued, the tyrant and the vic- 
tim ; there in little, as around us in large, the signs and 
tokens of something greatly amiss ; echoes in the nat- 
ural world of the mischiefs which sin has wrought in 
the spiritual. For man, when he fell, did not fall 
alone ; God had set him as the lord and king of the 
earth, in whom all its glories should centre, in whom 
they all should be summed up. Only a little lower 
than the angels, and -crowned with glory and honor, 
he was to have dominion over the works of God's 
hands ; all things were put under his feet. But when 
he rebelled against God, this lower nature rebelled 
against him. The confusion which sin had introduced 
into his relations to God, found its echo and counter- 
part in the confusions of nature's relations to him ; all 
became out of joint ; he dragged all after him in a 
common ruin. Glimpses, indeed, of the beauty of Par- 
adise still survive ; fragments of that broken sceptre, 
which man once wielded over the inferior creation, still 
remain in his hands. But much, very much, has dis- 
appeared. 

It has disappeared, but not forever. With Christ's 
first coming there went already signs and prophecies 
of a restored dominion of man over nature. Christ 
bids the angry winds and waves to be still, and they 
obey Him. St. Paul shakes off the venomous beast from 
his hand, and finds no harm. And the promise is, " Ye 
shall take up serpents ; and if ye drink any deadly 
thing, it shall not hurt you."* And yet all these are 



* Mark xvi. 18. 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 



269 



rather prophetic pledges and intimations of what shall 
be, than a gift actually in hand. A day, however, is 
coming, — our Lord calls it the " regeneration," * that 
is, the new birth of nature, even as there is already a 
new birth of man, — when the curse shall be lightened 
from the earth, as it has been already lightened from 
the spirit of man, and will, by and by, be lightened 
from his body ; the day when He who is now making 
man new, shall make all things else new ; when the 
wilderness shall blossom like the rose ; when there 
shall be no more curse ; when the wolf shall dwell with 
the lamb, when the leopard shall lie down with the 
kid ; when they shall not hurt nor destroy in all God's 
holy mountain ; f and that holy mountain shall be as 
wide as the earth itself. This is " the glorious liberty 
of the children of God," into which the whole creation 
is yearning to enter ; that is the bondage of corruption 
from which it is longing to be free. 

Such was the aspect under which all things that he 
saw and heard around him presented themselves to the 
great Apostle's mind ; on all sides a groaning and trav- 
ailing world, full of labor and full of sorrow, because 
full of sin and full of guilt ; and yet not laboring and 
sorrowing altogether in vain, seeing that all things 
were working together for a mighty issue and a crown- 
ing result ; and these pangs of creation were, so to 
speak, the birth-pangs of that glorious time ; these 
voices of the suffering creature were in his ear, though 
they knew it not themselves, cryings after a Redeemer, 



* Matt. xix. 28. 



f Isaiah xi. 6-9. 



270 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 



that He might come, and turn all the discords of the 
world into harmonies, stanch all the fountains of its 
woe, and make all its confusions and miseries to cease ; 
and crying s too which should not always remain un- 
neard. 

My dear brethren, have we any sense of that whereof 
the Apostle had so strong a sense, the imperfection of 
the things which now are ; any earnest longing for 
Him who can alone redress the wrongs of the present 
time '; make the crooked straight, and the old new, and 
the weak " strong, and the sick whole ? For observe, 
this longing, this yearning, this groaning, this travail- 
ing, St. Paul does not ascribe it to the creature only, 
but goes on, " And not only they, but ourselves also, 
which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan within 
ourselves, waiting the adoption, to wit, the redemption 
of body." As there is imperfection and incompleteness 
everywhere else, so also there is even in redeemed 
man. In one sense he is complete : he is complete in 
Christ ; made perfect as touching the conscience. But 
in another sense even he is incomplete ; he is waiting 
the redemption of his body. That is underlying still 
the bondage of corruption, and as such it is exposed to 
a thousand hurts and harms ; it pines with sickness, it 
is racked by disease, it wastes with age, it is torn by 
the shot, it is gashed with the sword ; and, worse than 
all this, it is a body not merely of death, but of sin ; 
the haunt of corruption, which is hard to subdue, and 
impossible, while we are here, altogether to expel. No 
wonder, theu, that St. Paul should declare how that 
we too, even we, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, 



THE GROANS OF CREATION. 



271 



who are ourselves " a kind of firstfruits of God's crea- 
tures,"* should oftentimes groan within ourselves, 
mingle notes of sadness with our anthems of praise, 
and be enabled to understand the world's woe by tast- 
ing some portion of it ourselves. 

I cannot now make, — you must make for your own 
selves, — the application of what has been said. Only 
let me ask you one question : Can it be well with us, 
can all be right with us, if this language which the 
Apostle here speaks is to us altogether strange, alto- 
gether unintelligible ; if we have no consciousness of a 
bondage of corruption, no groaning within ourselves 
that we may be delivered from this bondage, and as 
no yearning after a deliverance, so also no yearning- 
after a Deliverer ; in other words, no earnest need of 
our own heart and soul and spirit bringing us to Christ 
the Lord ? 



* Jam. i. 18. 



SERMON XXV. 



ST. PAUL THROUGH THE LAW DEAD TO THE LAW. 

I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. 

—Gal. ii. 19. 

A THOUGHTFUL reader of Holy Scripture, above 
all of the Epistles of St. Paul, must have been 
sometimes surprised, perhaps a little puzzled, at the 
two very different manners in which the law is spoken 
of there, with, for the most part, so much good ascribed 
to it, and yet sometimes so much harm ; it being gen- 
erally pronounced such a blessed thing to be under the 
law, while yet, occasionally, such a blessed thing to be 
delivered from it. I need hardly remind you of the 
excellent things which are spoken of the law ; it is " the 
law of the Lord/ 7 " an undefiled law," " giving light to 
the simple," " converting the soul, 7 ' " holy and just and 
good. 77 * The Apostle Paul it is who speaks these last 
words in its praise ; and now listen to the same Apostle 
Paul, how he seems to speak against it ; there is almost 
nothing too hard for him to say about it : " The law 
worketh wrath,' 7 f " The strength of sin is the law ;" $ 
he congratulates the Romans, and himself with them, 
on their deliverance from it, " We are delivered from 

* Rom. vii. 12. f Rom. iv. 15. \ 1 Cor. xv. 56. 

(272) 



ST. PAUL DEAD TO THE LAW. 



273 



the law, that being dead wherein we were held." * He 
implies that obedience to God is thus, and only thus, — 
that is, through this deliverance, — made possible for 
any man : " Sin shall not have dominion over you ; for 
ye are not under the law, but under grace f f with 
much more to the same effect, which your own memo- 
ries will easily suggest. 

Shall I ask you, which of these statements is true ? 
You would answer at once, both are true ; both must 
be true ; and these seeming contradictions must be ca- 
pable of reconciliation. It can only be while we dwell 
on the surface of things that there can even appear to 
be any opposition between one declaration of Scripture 
and another. This would be your answer, as it is 
mine. The actual reconciliation of what is spoken for, 
and what seems spoken against, the law, we shall ar- 
rive at best by attaining first a clear understanding in 
respect of what this law is, which St. Paul declares can 
never bring any man to perfection, can never produce 
in him any true holiness, any genuine and hearty con- 
formity to the will of God, cannot overcome sin, but 
will strengthen it rather, and in the end can only hang 
over to the just and terrible judgments of God. 

By this law, then, we are to understand not the Mo- 
saic law alone, still less the ceremonial portion of it 
alone ; and those who snatch at this last interpretation, 
as though the Apostle did but charge that with impo- 
tency and inability to justify, do thereby declare that 
they have wholly failed to enter into the spirit of St. 



Rom. vii. 6. 



f Ibid. vi. 14. 



274 



ST. PAUL THROUGH THE LAW 



Paul's Epistles, and are missing, it is much to be feared, 
truths most vital for themselves. The law here, being 
primarily the Mosaic law, is not that alone, but every 
law which is nothing more than a law, every revelation 
and utterance of God as He commands and threatens ; 
eminently, indeed, that " fiery law" which he spake 
once at Sinai ; but with that, each other distinct utter- 
ance of his, as He speaks in and to the consciences of 
men, saying, If thou breakest these commandments, 
thou art under a curse, thou art worthy of death, and 
thou shalt die. Now St. Paul affirms that this com- 
manding, threatening law can never of itself make a 
good man, can never make a holy man, can never make 
a man that shall love God with all his heart, that shall 
love his neighbor as himself. It might scare him, it 
might terrify him ; it might drive his sin deeper down 
into the inmost recesses of his heart ; it might bring 
him to such a sense of his own guilt and misery, that 
he should curse the hour of his birth, that hell should 
seem ever to yawn beneath him, and a threatening 
hand, ready to strike, seem ever suspended above him. 
It might bring him to see the holiness of God, but as 
the holiness of an ememy, of one whom he had made 
his enemy by his own unholiness, and one therefore 
whom he would fain flee from, if this might be, for- 
ever. 

It might do all this ; but more than this it could not 
do. For this law, I mean this law contemplated apart 
from other revelations of God, has in itself no secrets 
of peace, no secrets of power. It has no seats of 
peace ; nothing by which it enables the sinner to 



DEAD TO THE LAW. 



215 



make good the past ; to feel that his conscience is 
cleansed from dead works ; to look up to God as his 
Father, forgiving, pardoning, blotting out all this past, 
setting his heart at liberty, and so enabling him to run 
in the way of God's commandments. As little has the 
law any secrets of power. It gives no strength ; it 
does not address the man through his affections or his 
will ; it draws him with no cords of love. It is a bare 
menacing letter, saying to him, Do this, or, not doing 
it, thou shalt die ; demanding much, but at the same 
time imparting no strength to enable him to fulfil the 
demands which it makes. 

And even this is not all. To call the law impotent 
would oftentimes express only a part of the mischief 
whereof it was the occasion. The commandment com- 
ing, would not seldom of itself stir up the opposition 
which was slumbering before, awake up for the first 
time a rebellious principle in the heart of man, so that 
the very forbidding him to do the thing should arouse 
in him the desire to do it. This, the irritating power 
of the law, provoking by a spirit of contradiction the 
very evil which itself forbade, — -just as a rock flung 
into the bed of some headlong stream, would not arrest 
the stream, but only cause it, which ran swiftly yet 
silently before, now furiously to foam and fret round 
the obstacle which it found in its path, — this irritating 
power of the law, itself a most fearful testimony of the 
depth of man's fall, St. Paul often dwells on, above all 
in the seventh chapter of the Romans : "I was alive," 
he says there, " without the law once," counted myself 
alive, was not conscious of the deep antagonism be- 



276 



ST. PAUL THROUGH THE LAW 



tween niy will and the will of God ; " but when the 
commandment came, sin revived," started up from its 
seeming trance into fierce activity, into an open rebel- 
lion, " and I died."* So too in another place, " The 
motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our 
members to bring forth fruit unto death. "f But even 
where it was not thus, the law imparted no strength to 
a man enabling him to meet its claims, but left him 
exactly where he was before ; or, indeed, not so, but 
invested with a new responsibility ; for " where there 
is no law, sin is not imputed," and where there is law, 
it is imputed ; henceforward, therefore, not a sinner 
only, but a transgressor. 

This is the law which St. Paul is so zealous against, 
about which he says so many hard things ; and yet not 
zealous against it in itself, not speaking hard things of 
it, so long as it keeps in its own sphere, moves within 
its own bounds ; so far from this, that, writing to Timo- 
thy, he says, " The law is good, if a man use it lawfully." £ 
And how " lawfully" ? If he lays it on his flesh, and re- 
presses by it, not the inner evil lustings of his heart, for 
that he will never do, but the grosser outbreaks of his 
corrupt nature j if he learns by it what the whole com- 
pass of his duty is, and how greatly he has come short of 
it ; if he regards it as the awful utterance of G-od's perfect 
holiness, the pattern shown in the Mount of what man 
ought to be, and of what he has not been ; if it serves 
as a schoolmaster to bring him to Christ ; if it drives 
him to the mercy-seat, to lay hold there on the horns 



* Rom. viL 9. 



f Ibid. vii. 5. 



| 1 Tim. i. 8. 



DEAD TO THE LAW. 



277 



of the altar, to shelter himself under the shadow of the 
Cross from the wrath of God which is revealed from 
heaven against all unrighteousness of men. Such is 
the proper sphere of the law ; and St. Paul is only 
zealous against it when it forsakes this, the region 
which God has assigned it in the economy of our sal- 
vation, and is allowed to intrude into another ; when 
the man begins to regard it as the power in which he 
is to accomplish his obedience, and to do the works of 
God ; as that which, being fulfilled, should prove the 
meritorious cause of his salvation. Then indeed St. 
Paul was zealous against the law, exactly because he 
was zealous for the law, because he desired to see the 
righteousness of the law fulfilled in us, and because he 
knew that no man ever did in the power of the law 
accomplish obedience and bring forth fruit to God • 
because he knew that for this a higher principle of life 
is needed, and one which no law could ever impart, 
for it is the gift of the Spirit of God. 

This was the central conviction of the Apostle's life ; 
therefore was he so deeply indignant with the false 
teachers among the Galatians, who had brought his 
converts under the bondage of the law again ; who 
had transplanted them, his young and tender plants, 
from the rich and fertile soil of the grace of God, 
where they would have sprung up freely, and brought 
forth fruit abundantly, into the cold and barren and 
hungry soil of the law ; where, if they did not perish 
outright, they would yet pine and wither, grow dwarfed 
and stunted, and bring no fruit to perfection. And 
hoping to extricate from their bondage these misled 



278 



ST. PAUL THROUGH THE LAW 



Galatians, — "bewitched" he does not scruple to call 
them who could make so miserable an exchange, — he 
sketches for them the spiritual story of his own past 
life, summing up the entire result in the two verses, of 
which my text forms the first : " I through the law am 
dead unto the law ; " or better, " died to the law, that 
I might live unto God. 7 ' 

Let us take the first clause, that which contains the 
chief difficulty, first ; reading his words here by the 
help, and in the light of, other words of his own else- 
where. There was a time, he would say then, when I 
made the same experiment which you, who have gone 
back from Christ, and would fain be justified by the 
law, have been persuaded to make ; when, at my first 
awakening to an earnest, serious view of my relation 
to God, and of the obedience which He might justly 
demand of me, I sought in the law, and in my keeping 
of it, righteousness and peace, favor and acceptance 
with Him. But the experiment was a failure. The 
law could show me the good afar off, but it could not 
enable me to attain to the good it showed ; while yet 
it judged, threatened, and condemned for not attain- 
ing. Revealing to me the holiness that was in God, 
and the unholiness which was in me, it brought me for 
a while to the very verge of uttermost despair. But 
this attempt of mine, a failure in one way, was not a 
failure in another. " I, through the law, died to the 
law." I gave up, after a time, as a hopeless matter, 
the being justified by it. I found and perceived that 
it could condemn, but never absolve me ; could kill, 
but never make alive. I bade farewell to it : I ex- 



DEAD TO THE LAW. 



279 



tricated myself from it, and from the condemnation 
and curse which it pronounced upon me ; even as I 
was able to do this, for I now knew of One who had 
come into my place, even Jesus Christ the righteous, 
who had kept the law which I had not kept, who had 
borne my curse, had been crucified for me, had con- 
demned my sin in his own flesh, had at once condemned 
and forgiven it ; — for was there not the most awful 
condemnation of it in all that He bore, a manifestation 
of the righteousness of God ? and yet while He con- 
demned, at the same time He also forgave it ; for if 
He became a curse, it was for my sake ; that, becoming 
such, He might bear, and bearing bear away, all the 
curse which I must else have borne. And now hence- 
forth I look to his cross, and I see my sin crucified 
with Him, nailed to the same cross to which He was 
nailed. It is my sin no longer, for He made it his sin ; 
and the debt which I could not pay, He took on Him- 
self, and He paid it there. I am thus free from the 
law, or dead to the law, henceforth. 

He was indeed dead to the law in two ways. First, 
he no longer sought in it the motive power which 
should enable him to bring forth fruit to God. It had 
itself cured him of this delusion. Henceforth he knew 
a more effectual motive, the love of Christ, that should 
constrain him to obedience, being in itself precept and 
power in one. And secondly, he was loosed from the 
law, dead to it, in that he no longer sought to be ac- 
cepted with God through, and on the ground of, his 
observance of it. For he had found by a mournful ex- 
perience that it wrought not acceptance, but rejection ; 



280 



ST. PAUL THROUGH THE LAW 



a terror of God, and not a confidence toward God; 
that by the works of the law should no flesh be justified. 
While yet this dying to the law, as he goes on in the 
second clause of my text to say, was not a dying to all 
law. The law of the spirit of life took the place of 
the law of a dead, yet threatening, letter. He put one 
yoke off him, but in the act of this he put another on 
him. In fact, he only could get rid of one by assuming 
the other, even the yoke of Him, whose yoke is easy 
and whose burden light. He died to the law ; but he 
died to it that he might live unto God. 

With such an experience of his own as this, it is 
nothing wonderful if St. Paul could ill endure that his 
beloved Galatians, they too already receivers of a new 
life, quickened long ago by a new power, delivered 
from the law that they might keep the law, justified 
freely by God's grace, that out of love to their Justi- 
fier, their crucified Lord and God, they might do those 
things which they never would or could have done out 
of fear of their lawgiver and condemner, — if, I say, he 
could ill endure that they should leave the riches of 
this grace, and submit themselves to the penury of that 
law ; should forsake the strong, and attach themselves 
to the weak ; should quit the blessed shelter of the 
mountain of the beatitudes for the rugged steeps of 
Sinai, its thunders, its lightnings, and its doom. 

And you, too, my brethren, you see your calling. 
For you also it stands true, that you are not under the 
law, but under grace ; and you also should be able to 
say with Paul, " I through the law am dead to the law." 
The words contain an answer to two errors, both very 



DEAD TO THE LAW. 



281 



current in our day ; errors seeming opposite to one 
another, and yet growing out of the same root ; so that 
the answer to one is the answer to the other. The first 
is theirs who count that the end for which the Son of 
God came into the world was, that God might accept 
from us henceforth a poorer obedience than that which 
He demanded before, and be satisfied with less ; that 
Christ came to make the narrow way not so narrow, 
the strait gate not so strait. Is it not even so ? Are 
we not oftentimes tempted to think thus of Christ, as 
the mere bringer-in of an easier law, as having come 
to let men off from the stricter obedience which God 
had hitherto required, the Only-begotten of the Father 
having, in fact, for this taken flesh, and lived and died, 
that men might lead poorer, meaner, earthlier lives 
than before ? This is one error. The other, opposite, 
yet akin to it, that the chief end for which Christ came 
was to give a stricter law than Moses had given, to 
draw the reigns more tightly, to impose a severer rule 
and discipline than that which men, through the hard- 
ness of their hearts, had been hitherto able to bear. 

These are errors both ; for indeed Christ's gospel is 
neither one of these nor the other ; neither a laxer law, 
as those would affirm, nor a stricter, as these ; being, 
in truth, not a law at all, but rather a new power com- 
municated to humanity ; a new hiding of the heavenly 
leaven in the lump of our nature ; the casting of fire 
upon earth, the new fire of a heavenly love, and of the 
Holy Ghost, who is love, which should enkindle the 
cold hearts of men, and burn up in them the dross, 
which the law indeed could make them aware of, but 



282 



ST. PAUL THROUGH THE LAW 



which it never could burn out from them. It was the 
coming in of new spiritual forces into the world. It 
demanded more from man, but it also gave more ; it, 
in fact, demanded nothing which it had not first given. 
You see, then, your calling, that unto which you are 
summoned, even the obedience of faith ; you see why 
peace is preached to you for the past, even because 
holiness is demanded from you for the future. You 
see what the law can do for you, and what it cannot ; 
and where the gospel must come in. Use them both, 
but at the same time have a good care that you use 
them both aright ; and that you do not confound, but 
keep them apart ; not applying the one where you 
ought to apply the other ; for on this results most dis- 
astrous might follow. t 

Use the law, its terrors, its threatenings, as a bridle 
on the flesh, on its lower appetites and desires. Use 
the law to convince and to condemn you ; to beat you 
out of your refuges of lies, and all your vain confidence 
in yourselves ; to show you your sin. Listen to it in 
the length and breadth of its commandments, every one 
of which, spiritually apprehended, you have broken, in 
the terrible sanctions with which the Lord has fenced 
it, and sworn that He will avenge its breach ; listen, 
till you hear the thunders of Sinai rolling ever nearer 
and nearer, seeming at length to pause right above 
your head, and only to wait for a word ere they break 
in ruin there. But when thou wantest to find the se- 
cret of peace, — yea, when thou wantest to find the 
secret of strength, be thou as Paul, " through the law 
dead to the law." Refuse to know it, to acknowledge 



DEAD TO THE LAW. 



283 



its jurisdiction, for it will surely deliver thee to thy 
enemies. Say like Paul, " I appeal unto Cassar." In 
it there is no peace, in it there is no strength. It can 
tell thee of no pardon ; it can lend thee no strength 
for the fulfilment of one even of its own lightest re- 
quirements. All this is to be found in another, in 
Christ Jesus, and in the faithful looking unto Him. 
The law, when regarded apart from Him, is like that 
fabled Medusa's head, which froze them that looked at 
it to stone. But Christ thaws those frozen hearts 
again, causes the pulses to play, and the genial life- 
blood to flow in them once more. See, then, that thou 
do not confound these two, — :the law, the utterance of 
God's holiness, the rule of man's life, the sinner's con- 
demnation, — and the gospel, the power in which this 
obedience is to be accomplished, the dispensation of 
the Spirit, the message of pardon and peace ; showing 
all mercy to the sinner, while at the same time it de- 
mands of him that he shall show no mercy to the sin. 



SERMON XXVI. 



THE DUTY OF ABHORRING EVIL. 
A.bhor that which is evil. — Rom. xii, 9. 

HOW many, my brethren, shun evil as inconvenient, 
who do not abhor it as hateful ; while yet the ab- 
horrence of evil here demanded of us implies a great 
deal more than that shunning, which satisfies, as we 
often think, every claim which can be made upon us. 
To abhor evil is to have it in a moral detestation j to 
shrink back from it with a shuddering horror, as one 
would shrink back from a hissing, stinging serpent 
which of a sudden lifted itself up in his path ; for it is 
this shuddering horror that our word implies ; which, 
strong as it is, is certainly not a whit stronger than the 
word of the original. It is this duty which I desire to 
urge on you this day ; the duty incumbent on the 
Christian man of entering into God's mind concerning 
evil, of seeing it in the light in which He sees it, of 
having the whole moral and spiritual nature engaged 
in active and lively repugnance to it, so that he shall 
never, looking abroad upon the evil which is in the 
world, looking within himself upon the evil which is 
in his own heart, regard this evil around him or within 
him with a careless, indifferent eye, shall never think 
of sin lightly, or speak of it jestingly, — it is only fools 

(2S4) 



THE DUTY OF ABHORRING EVIL. 285 

who make a mock at sin, — but ever more regard it as 
the abominable thing which G-od hates, and which there- 
fore his children, who have his mind, and are ranged 
on his side in the great conflict between light and dark- 
ness, are pledged and bound to make no terms with, but 
evermore to hate, detest, and defy. 

And, indeed, this vigorous abhorrence of evil has 
been the mark and note of God's saints and servants 
in all times, and from the very beginning. Let me 
rapidly gather a few notable proofs. More than forty 
years had elapsed since that cruel and treacherous mur- 
der of the Shechemites by Simeon and Levi ; but with 
what a fresh indignation, with what a still lively ab- 
horrence, as though it had been the crime of yesterday, 
does the aged Israel on his deathbed disclaim any part 
or share in that bloody act, and detest and denounce 
it : a O my soul, come not thou into their secret ; 
unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united. "* 
Then, too, in a life which had many flaws, I mean in 
that of Lot, the most honorable testimony which is 
anywhere borne to him is this, that he was " vexed 
with the filthy conversation of the wicked that he, 
" dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed 
his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful 
deeds/'f And St. Peter nearly connects his deliver- 
ance from the doom which overtook the guilty cities 
with this his righteous abhorrence of the evil things 
which were wrought in them. 

Still more plainly and signally does this appear in 



Gen. xlix. 6. 



f 2 Pet. ii. 8. 



286 



THE DUTY OF ABHORRING EVIL. 



hiin, whom among all the saints of the Old Testament 
we know the best, I mean, of coarse, David. Hear 
him, as he is speaking before a heart-searching God : 
" 1 hate the works of them that turn aside " Do I 
not hate them, Lord, that hate Thee ? "+ with many 
more utterances to the same effect. The same voice 
finds its utterance in other Psalms, which, though they 
be not David's, yet breathe and share the spirit of Da- 
vid. How often, for example, and how strongly, in 
the 119th Psalm : "I hate vain thoughts )% not mere- 
ly, I avoid them, and would willingly be rid of them, 
but my whole moral nature rises up in active hostility 
against them or, again, " I beheld the transgressors, 
and was grieved it was not, that is, a thing indif- 
ferent to him, but pain and grief that men were break- 
ing God's law, transgressing his commandments. 

And as with these, so no less with the righteous 
kings of Judah in later times, the Asas, the Hezekiahs, 
the Josiahs. What the others gave utterance to in 
word, these, as occasion offered, uttered and expressed 
in deed. When, after some great falling away of the 
people to idolatry, they restored the true worship of 
Jehovah, they were not satisfied with merely abandon- 
ing the groves, and forsaking the temples of the false 
gods, and ceasing to burn incense to them therein ; but 
we read of their cutting down the groves, breaking in 
pieces the images, stamping and burning them in the 
fire,*!" turning to basest uses the idol temples,! defiling 



* Psalm ci. 3. 
% Ver. 113. 
T 2 Chron. xv. 16. 



f Ibid, cxxxix. 21. 
§ Ibid. cxix. 158. 
|| 2 Kings x. 27. 



THE DUTY OF ABHORRING EYIL. 2Sl 

with dead men's bones the altars on which incense had 
been burned to them ;* for so did they embody in 
righteous acts, visible to all men, their fulfilment of 
the precept of the Apostle, " Abhor that which is evil.' 7 
But most signally of all this abhorrence of evil comes 
out in Him of whom it is written, " Thou lovest right- 
eousness, and hatest wickedness ; therefore God, thy 
God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above 
thy fellows. "f It is this, you will observe, which is 
avouched of Him, namely, that he hated wickedness ; 
it was not merely that He kept Himself aloof from it, 
passed it by, had nothing to do with it ; but that He 
hated it. His whole moral nature was in active and 
continual warfare with it. That " Get thee behind 
Me, Satan," uttered once to the adversary in the wil- 
derness, was the voice of his heart at every instant, 
was the key-note to which his whole life was set. The 
zeal of his Father's house consumed him, so that, though 
once only, or at most twice, He may have driven 
out the profane intruders from the Temple of his 
Father, yet the spirit which dictated these outbreaks 
of holy zeal was the spirit in which his whole life was 
lived, his whole ministry was accomplished. Ever 
near to his heart was the holy indignation which He 
felt at the dishonor done to his Father's name ; the 
holy hatred which he felt, not of the world, for that 
was the object of his tender est pity, but of the pollu- 
tions of the world, in the midst of which He was mov- 
ing ; and in his entire exemption from which pollu- 



* 2 Kings, xxiii. 20. 



t Psalm xlv. 7 ; Heb. i. 9. 



288 



THE DUTY OF ABHORKING- EVIL. 



tions He was " separate from sinners," though united 
to them in every thing besides. 

If, brethren, it is indeed thus, if all holy men have felt 
this abhorrence of evil, and the holiest have felt it the 
most strongly, and Christ, the Holy One of God, more 
than all the rest, it may be well worth our while to in- 
quire whether we have any of this righteous passion in 
our hearts ; for surely as He was, so ought we to be 
in the world. The inquiry is by no means superfluous. 
This is an age of feeble, languid Christianity, as I fear 
we must all confess. Those who are slightly touched 
by the power of the truth, on whose lives it exercises 
a certain beneficial influence, are many, perhaps more 
than in any other period of the church. But it is much 
to be feared that what we have gained in breadth we 
have lost in depth. Those whom the truth mightily 
takes hold of, who are content to be fools for Christ, 
who would be content to be martyrs for Christ, who 
love the good with a passionate love, who hate the evil 
with a passionate hatred, are few ; while yet it should 
be thus with all. Let me suggest to you two or three 
tests by which we may try and form a judgment of 
ourselves, whether we can in any measure be said to 
abhor that which is evil. 

And first, how fares it with us in regard of our 
temptations ? Do we parley and dally with them, wil- 
ling to entertain them up to a certain point, and to 
have thus, as by a certain foretaste, some shadow of 
the pleasure of the sin without the guilt of it ? do we 
plot and plan how near to the edge of the precipice we 
may go without falling over ? Or do we rise up against 



THE DUTY OF ABHORRING EYIL. 



289 



temptations so soon as once they present themselves to 
us, knowing them afar off, keeping them at arm's length, 
indignant with ourselves that they should so much as 
once have suggested themselves to our minds, and re- 
solved of God's grace that there is nothing more that 
they shall do ; that at any rate the temptation shall not 
lay its cockatrice's egg in our hearts, to be hatched one 
day into the fiery flying serpent of accomplished sin ? 
This is a sign of abhorring evil, when it is thus repelled 
at its first advances ; when the remote approaches to 
sin are counted, if not actually as guilty as sin itself, 
yet to be shunned and watched against with an equal 
care. 

But, again ; the light in which a man regards the 
old sins into which he may have been betrayed is instruc- 
tive, as furnishing an answer to this question, Does he 
really abhor what is evil? When a man looks back 
on sins which he has committed in times past, and 
though he would not indeed now do the same, yet feels 
a certain complacency in the circumstances and details 
of them, — in his old debauch, in the excesses of his 
youth ; when his forsaken sins thus fill him with any 
other feeling but that of shame and self-loathing, as 
exprest in those words of St. Peter, " The time past of 
our life may suffice as to have wrought the will of the 
Gentiles ;' ; this is too certain a proof that he has not 
truly learned to abhor what is evil ; that, however he 
may have left off certain sinful acts which he once com- 
mitted, the pure hatred of evil, such as the Apostle re- 
quires of us. is not in him. 

But another important element in this self-examina- 
13 



290 THE DUTY OF ABHORRING EVIL. 

tion whether we be abhorrers of evil or no, is this : In 
what language are we accustomed to talk of sin, and 
of the violations of God's law ? Have we fallen into 
the world's way, taken up the world's language in 
speaking about all this ? Is the man sunk in impurest 
lusts of the flesh, the seducer of innocence, the violator 
of the holiest sanctuary of family life, called a man of 
pleasure ? Do we speak good of the covetous, whom 
God abhorreth ? Do we in these, and many like ways, 
put, as the world does, sweet for bitter and bitter for 
sweet ? If we do, this is only too sure a sign that we 
do not abhor evil, else we should not call it by the 
name of good ; if light was indeed light to us,' and 
darkness darkness, we could not so confound these, 
and call them by one another's names. 

But, once more ; is the sin which is in the world 
around us a burden to our souls and spirits ? I am 
not speaking of our own sin, for that must be a burden* 
if we have anything of Christ and of his spirit in us, 
but the sin which is around us. Could we with any 
truth take up that language of the Psalmist, " I beheld 
the transgressors, and was grieved " ? or, again, " Mine 
eyes run over with tears, because men keep not Thy 
law " ? or that which found its yet higher fulfilment in 
the Saviour Himself, " The reproaches of them that re- 
proached Thee are fallen upon me "?* When we look 
abroad on the world, and see the works done against 
the words of God's lips, does this fill us with any 
heaviness, with any indignation ? is it any part of the 



* Ps. lxix. 9 : cf. Rom. xv. 3. 



THE DUTY OF ABHORRING EVIL. 291 

burden of our hearts, the sorrow of our lives ? Is 
there any feeling in us, that when Christ is wounded 
we are wounded ; any of the spirit in us which was in 
Paul and Barnabas, when they rent their clothes be- 
cause of the dishonor they saw about to be done to 
God, in giving his glory to another ? * Could any 
testimony be borne to us like that which, amid many 
grievous shortcomings, was borne to the angel of 
Ephesus, "But this thou hast, that thou hatest the 
deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate " ? t Or 
do we rather feel, that if we can get pretty comfort- 
ably through life, and if other men's sins do not vex, 
cross, inconvenience, or damage us, they are no great 
concern of ours, nothing which it is any business of 
ours to fight against ? I say, if it be thus with us, we 
have not yet learned the meaning of the words, "Abhor 
that which is evil.''' 

One or two practical observations in conclusion. 
Seeing, then, that we ought to have this lively hatred 
of evil, that, tried by the tests which have been sug- 
gested, there are probably few, if any, among us who 
have it to the extent we ought, how, we may very fitly 
inquire, shall we obtain it? St. Paul tells us how, 
when in the same breath he bids us to "abhor that 
which is evil," and to " cleave to that which is good." 
Do not miss, I beseech you, the energy of that word 
"cleave." This, too, expresses, but it does not do 
more than express, the energy of the word in the origi- 
nal. Cling, the Apostle would say, to the good as 



* Acts xiv. 14. 



f Bev. ii. 6. 



292 



THE DUTY OF ABHORRING EVIL. 



something from which you will not be divided, from 
which nothing shall divorce you. We all know how 
the ivy clings to the wall or to the tree, casts out in- 
numerable little arms and tentacles by which it attaches 
and fastens itself to it. seeking to become one with it, 
to grow to it, so that only by main force the two can 
be torn asunder. It is something of this kind which 
is meant here. In such fashion cleave to that which is 
good ; — and if " to that which is good/' then, as the 
sole condition of this, to Him that is good, who is the 
Good, the Holy, the Just One. 

It is only in nearer fellowship with Him, and by the 
inspiration of his Spirit, that we can learn our lesson 
of hating the evil. It is in his light only that we can 
see light, or that we can see darkness. It is only light 
which reveals darkness ; it is only holiness that con- 
demns unholiness ; it is only love which rebukes hate. 
Here, therefore, is the secret of abhorring the evil, 
namely, in the dwelling with and near the good, and 
Him who is the Good. From Him we shall obtain 
weights and measures of the sanctuary whereby to 
measure in just balances the false and the true ; from 
Him the straight rule or canon which shall tell us what 
is crooked in our own lives, what is crooked in the 
lives around us. While our conversation is only or 
chiefly with men, we can have no high standard of 
what is pure, or lovely, or true. It is conversation 
with God, conversation with Christ, which alone sup- 
plies that standard. How must Moses have felt. when, 
having been forty days with God in the Mount, he 
came down from thence, and, as he drew near the 



THE DUTY OF ABHORRING EVIL. 293 



camp, heard the shouts of riot and revelry, these im- 
pure accompaniments of idolatrous worship, rising up 
from the plain below ! * At any moment they would 
have shocked him ; but how must they have shocked 
him now, fresh from his long communion with his God, 
frtfm. the silence of the holy mount, from the awful 
vision of Him, whose throne is on the sapphire pave- 
ment of heaven, who charges his angels with folly, 
which had been vouchsafed him there. 

Be with God in the mountain of contemplation and 
prayer, and it will fare with • you as it fared with 
Moses. Fellowship with God in Christ, an often 
pressing into his presence, and seeing of his face, a 
cleaving to Him whom the young ruler might not call 
' good," because he did not recognize Him as God,f 
but who brought, as we know, goodness down from 
heaven and planted it on earth ; who has made it 
something which is very near to every one of us ; who 
is Himself the Holy and the True ; — this, with the il- 
lumination of that Holy Spirit whose special office 
it is to reprove all works of darkness,^ will teach us 
the right abhorrence of evil ; so that no familiarity 
with it shall make us patient toward it, or reconcile us 
to it, but that it shall still be to us what it is to the 
holy angels, what it is to the holy God, the abominable 
thing which our soul hates. " ye that love the Lord, 
see that ye hate the thing which is evil." 



* Exod. xxxii. 17, 18. f Matt. xix. 17. 

% Eph. v. 11-13. 



SERMON XXVII. 



CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM. 

And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, 
saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the 
things which belong unto thy peace ! but now they are hid from 
thine eyes. — Luke xix. 41, 42. 

THREE times, and three only, during the days of his 
flesh, it is recorded of the Son of God that He 
shed human tears : once at the grave of Lazarus his 
friend, where, touched and moved by the sorrow of so 
many round Him, Himself too a mourner among 
mourners, " Jesus wept once in the garden of Geth- 
semane, where, as the writer to the Hebrews tells us, 
He, our great High Priest, " offered up prayers and 
supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him 
that was able to save Him from death ; " and once, 
which is the occasion that will occupy us to-day, as He 
descended the Mount of Olives, and saw stretched be- 
neath his feet the city, so near its destruction, and yet 
so unconscious of its doom. Then, too, " when He was 
come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it." 
And, Man of sorrows as He was, these three times, so 
far as we know, were all ; so that his tears lay not, as 
do the tears of so many, near to the surface, ready to 
start forth on every slight and trivial occasion, but 
were drawn from deep fountains ; and when he wept, 

(294) 



CHRIST WEEPING OYER JERUSALEM. 295 



we may confidently ask, Was there not a cause ? when 
He shed tears, we may be quite sure that there was 
matter before Him worthy of tears ; for nothing but 
an infinite sorrow, a matter of unutterable sadness, 
would have drawn those precious drops from his eyes. 

Let us, then, my brethren, seek to give some account 
to ourselves of what the motives were of that passion- 
ate grief which at this moment more than at others the 
Lord felt and uttered, and where the stress of his sor- 
row lay. Let us inquire what lessons of comfort, what 
lessons of awful warning, these tears of his are charged 
with for us. For Jesus the Lord is our teacher, not 
merely by all that He said, but by all that He did. 
There is not a gesture, an emotion, a look of his, a look 
of love, or a look of anger, or a look of compassion, 
recorded in Scripture, which is not recorded there for 
our learning, which has not its own instruction for us, 
if only we would patiently consider these lesser traits 
as well as the broader features of his divine life and 
ministry. 

And first, where was the stress of his sorrow, the 
pang that wrung Him, and wrung Him so nearly, at 
that peculiar moment? Assuredly it lay not in the 
outer circumstances of that immediate time. Beautiful 
for situation, the joy of the whole earth, the holy city 
lay beneath Him, as he stood upon the crest of Mount 
Olivet. And as his eye could scarcely have beheld a 
fairer sight, so too his ears were filled with the loud 
hosannas of the multitudes, who, with branches of palm- 
trees in their hands, and strewing their garments in 
the way, greeted and welcomed Him as the King of 



296 CHRIST WEEPING OYER JERUSALEM. 



Israel, the Messiah waited for so long. It was indeed 
one of the few festal moments in the earthly life of the 
Lord. A gleam of glory lit up for a moment that 
earthly life before the thick darkness of Gethsemane 
and Calvary had closed around it. It was the tri- 
umphal entry of a king into the metropolis of his king- 
dom ; and the proud unbelieving city, which had so 
long despised and rejected, seemed now ready to wel- 
come with open arms Him who should turn iniquity 
from Jacob. 

And yet, in the midst of all this joy and exultation, 
and for Him who was the object and the centre of it 
all, there was sorrow in his heart ; nor only that bur- 
den of habitual grief, that burden of a world's sin, 
which lay evermore on Him, and made Him the Man 
or sorrows that He was, but the anguish of a sharper 
and a nearer grief. And what was that ? His own 
words will best declare : " If thou hadst known, even 
thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong 
unto thy peace ! but now they are hid from thine eyes." 
He measured the worth, or rather He estimated the 
worthlessness, of those greetings which greeted Him 
now. He knew that all this joy, this jubilant burst, 
as it seemed, of a people's gladness, was but as fire 
among straw, which blazes up for an instant, and then 
as quickly expires, leaving nothing but a handful of 
black ashes behind it. He knew that of this giddy 
thoughtless multitude, many who now cried, " Hosanna, 
blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord," 
would, ere a little week was ended, join their voices 
with the voices of them who exclaimed, " Crucify Him, 



CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM. 291" 

crucify Hini : we have no king but Caesar and He 
wept, not for Himself, but for them, for the doom 
which they were preparing for their city, for their 
children, for themselves. 

He knew, and this was a sadder thought still, that 
there was no part of this dreadful doom but might 
have been averted. There were things which belonged 
to Jerusalem's peace, and which would have secured it, 
if only she would have known them. They were things 
which He had brought with Him. The guilty city, the 
murderess of the prophets, she that had been a provo- 
cation almost from her first day until now, might have 
washed her and made her clean from all that blood 
and from all that filthiness ; she might have become, 
not in name only but in deed, " the city of peace," if 
only she would have consented first to be " the city of 
righteousness," to receive aright Him who had come, 
" meek and having salvation," and bringing near to 
her the things of her everlasting peace. There was no 
dignity, there was no glory, that might not have been 
hers. She might have been a name and a praise in all 
the earth. From that mountain of the Lord's house 
the streams of healing, the waters of the river of life, 
might have gone forth for the healing of all the bitter 
waters of the world. But no ; she chose rather to be 
herself the bitterest fountain of all. As she had refused 
in the times past to hear God's servants, so now she 
refused to hear his Son, stopped her ears like the deaf 
adder, made her heart hard as adamant, that, she might 
not hear Him. 

And now, which was the saddest thought of all, the 
13* 



298 CHRIST WEEPING OYER JERUSALEM. 

days of gracious visitation, during which He was walk- 
ing up and down in her streets, during which she might, 
if she would, have seen his glory, full of grace and 
truth, — these days were ending, or had indeed already 
ended, for many ; the things which belonged to the 
peace of her children, they would not know them ; and 
those things were being forever hid from their eyes. 
He who knew what was in man, knew that for the 
great mass of that people it would be so. He who sees 
all, saw in his mind's eye those forty years of impeni- 
tence and pride, of hatred toward Him, the ascended 
Lord, with all the messages of defiance sent after Him, 
— " We will not have this man to reign over us," — 
those forty years of the cruel persecution of his ser- 
vants, during which that people should fill up the meas- 
ure of their iniquity ; and then He beheld that day 
when the great King should send his armies, for they 
were his armies, the rod of his wrath, however they 
might be also the armies of Rome, and destroy the city 
of those murderers. Already He beheld Jerusalem 
compassed with foes ; He saw with prophetic eye the 
Roman engines shaking the walls ; He heard with pro- 
phetic ear the tramp of the Roman legions as they ad- 
vanced to the assault. He saw all ; the sword devour- 
ing without, and the sword devouring within ; the 
famine consuming what the sword had spared ; the 
tender and delicate woman fulfilling the hideous proph- 
ecy of Moses, and eating her own offspring for the 
want and straitness of all things in the siege ;* " the 



* Deut. xxviii. 56, 67. 



CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM. 



299 



abomination of desolation" (whatever that might be) 
<£ standing in the holy place j" and all which is involved 
in the fierce madness and wild despair of a people, 
which, having been the people of God, had rejected 
Him, and had been in return rejected by Him. He 
saw all, and comparing this, the portion which Jerusa- 
lem was making for herself, with the portion which 
He would have made for her, " when He beheld the 
city, He wept over it. 77 

And these tears of the Son of Man, with the words 
which accompanied and interpreted these tears, have 
they no lesson, no instruction for us? They have 
many lessons, much instruction. Bear with me, while 
I endeavor to bring some portion of this home to your 
hearts. 

And first, there are things which belong unto our 
peace ; things which it most deeply concerns us to 
know ; things which it were matter of weeping even 
for the Son of God, were He now upon earth, if we 
refused to know them. And what things are these but 
the same which Jerusalem in that her day might have 
known, and would not, — the things of Christ ? Happy 
the world may count him, happy he may count himself, 
but I say that miserable is every man, who has nothing 
between himself and judgment except that little inch 
of time which he is still permitted to call his own ; 
miserable indeed, who does not know these things of 
his peace, being the things of Christ, the worth of his 
all-atoning sacrifice, the power of his blood to cleanse 
the conscience, of his Spirit to sanctify our spirits ; 
who does not know the reconciliation with the Father 



300 



CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM. 



which is the fruit of these. Such are the things of our 
peace. Whatever else the world can give us, it cannot 
give us these ; and yet not to have these, is to be, 
however we may disguise the fact from ourselves for 
a while, most miserable of all ; to be preparing wrath 
and doom, tribulation and uttermost anguish for our- 
selves. 

But then, secondly, we learn that there are times of 
gracious visitation, when these things are brought 
nearer to us than at other times, when above all it be- 
hoves us that we embrace and make them ours. Na- 
tions and individuals have alike these their times of 
gracious visitation, which it vitally concerns them that 
they do not miss, that they do not allow to slip by 
them unimproved. It was, as we have seen, such a 
time of visitation for Israel when her King walked up 
and down in the midst of her, speaking such words as 
none other had ever spoken, doing such works as none 
other had ever done. Then was the " one year more," 
during which the heavenly Husbandman was digging 
about the roots of the fig-tree, barren too long ; and 
then, if it had borne fruit, well ; but because it did not, 
He therefore cut it down. 

But while we wonder at their blindness and their 
guilt, who would not know this time and improve it, 
let us beware lest we come under the same condemna- 
tion. There are moments and crises of our lives, which 
are our times of visitation, upon which vast issues, 
oftentimes the whole issue for eternity, depend. Times 
of a great joy, or of a great sorrow, when the Lord of 
our life gives us some crowning blessing, the keystone 



CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM. 301 

of the arch of our happiness, or when He takes this 
keystone away, and that arch, which seemed a moment 
since so strong, falls in ruins at our feet ; times of some 
signal outward deliverances, when the sickness of a great 
fear, the bitterness as of death for some whom we loved, 
passes from us ; times when God shakes the rod over us, 
but, it may be, withdraws it again, or times when He suf- 
fers it to alight ; seasons of trying pain, of weary sick- 
ness, of unlooked-for recovery ; when He makes us rich, 
or when He makes us poor • times of spiritual trouble, 
when the spectres of our old sins rise again from their 
graves to trouble and to haunt us, or when those old 
sins evidently find us out, bring us to an open shame 
even before men ; all these, and many more, are times of 
visitation, which it infinitely concerns us to know. God 
is then speaking to us more than at other times ; allur- 
ing us into the wilderness, that He may talk with us 
there. He is singling us out from the crowd. As the 
prophet had a word for Jehu, and singled him out from 
his fellows, — " I have an errand to thee, captain,"* 
— so God has a special word for us at such times as 
these. And what is that word ? Give Me thy heart. 
If thou hast served Me in times past, yet serve Me 
better now ; with a purer service, with a more devoted 
aim, with a singler eye, with more frequent and more 
fervent prayer, with a freer dedication of thy means, 
thy time, thy affections to Me. Or if in time past thou 
hast been serving vanity, serving the world, serving 
sin, yet count that time to be enough, and more than 



2 Kings ix. 5. 



302 CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM. 

enough ; look back at it and its doings with a holy 
indignation, and now serve Me, who hold thy soul in 
life, and have sought by these gracious leadings to lead 
thee to the knowledge of Myself, whom to know is 
life everlasting. 

Whoso is wise will consider these things, will not 
allow these times to escape him unobserved, unim- 
proved. They are angels of God, whom he will detain 
and welcome ; angels, sometimes, it may be, with dark 
and threatening countenances, " very terrible," * but 
always with hands full of gifts and full of blessings. 
For these critical seasons may not return ; there is 
certainly one of them which will be the last ; and even 
if they do return, the same inconsideration, the same 
lack of watchfulness in respect of God's dealings with 
us, which lost us the first, would probably in like man- 
ner lose for us the second and the third. And when 
at last this long course of God's dealings with us, and 
messages to us, is exhausted ; when the things of our 
peace, because we refused to know them, have been 
forever withdrawn from our eyes, what will remain for 
us then? We know what remained for Jerusalem, 
what doom was reserved for her and her children. 
Jesus wept over the guilty city, but He did not the less 
destroy it. There was no weakness in those tears. It 
was because He meant against the guilty city all with 
which He threatened it, that therefore He wept over it. 
There would not else have been any cause or argument 
for tears. 



* Judg. xiii. 6. 



CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM. 303 

And He means all which He threatens now. We 
are sometimes tempted with a temptation like this : 
God, who is a God of love, who is a God of infinite 
compassion, will never execute those terrible sentences 
which He has pronounced against impenitent sinners. 
He means but to scare them, if thus it may be done, 
from their sins ; and if He fails in so doing, He will 
in one way or other find out for them a way of escape. 
It is a subtle temptation, lurking in the background of 
many minds, which yet hardly acknowledge it to them- 
selves ; one by which multitudes contrive to persuade 
themselves that they have no such need of earnestly 
mortifying sin, of seeking Christ while He may be 
found, of pressing upon others the knowledge of his 
one saving name. But against all these perverse dis- 
putings of men we would set the one awful fact, that 
He who shed over Jerusalem those tears of love, who 
uttered those words of an infinite pity, it was even He, 
the same, who, when the city continued impenitent and 
unbelieving, without faith and without repentance, 
sent his armies and destroyed it. 



SERMON XXVIII. 



THRONGING CHRIST, AND TOUCHING CHRIST. 

And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that virtue bad gone out 
of Him, turned Him about in the press, and said, Who touched my 
clothes ? And bis disciples said unto Him, Thou seest the multitude 
thronging Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me ? 

—Mark v. 30, 31. 

FEW things strike us more in the record of our 
Lord's miracles of healing, than the infinite variety 
of the circumstances by which they were attended. 
They have each its several and distinct physiognomy ; 
so that there are hardly any two which in their minor 
details repeat one another. Features, indeed, of resem- 
blance they all have. They are all outcomings of the 
grace and power and infinite pity of the Son of God, 
who in our flesh walked up and down among the suf- 
fering children of men. But, with all this, how differ- 
ent they are ; nor is this hard to account for. The 
richness, the opulence of the Lord's spiritual life, the 
deep sympathy which He had for all forms of suffering 
and sorrow, brought Him in contact with the suffering 
and the sorrowing on a thousand new and unexpected 
sides ; while the wisdom which caused Him to vary 
his gracious dealings according to the varying needs 
and necessities of those who applied to Him for help, 
ever seeking, as He did, to make the healing of the 

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THRONGING CHRIST. 



305 



body minister to the healing of the soul, this manifold 
wisdom must explain why one was healed in this way, 
and one in that ; why one obtained a blessing at once, 
and another only after much asking ; one by a word 
spoken from a distance, and one by the actual touch of 
those sacred hands ; one through the intercession of 
friends, and another in reply to his own prayer. 

Thus how totally unlike every other miracle of heal- 
ing is that wrought upon the poor woman whom my 
text has no doubt summoned up before your mind's 
eye. Grievously afflicted, she had sought, but had 
sought in vain, during twelve long years, for help and 
healing. What a picture in a few strokes our Evan- 
gelist draws ; and, indeed, there is no such painter as 
he : " She had suffered," he tells us, " many things of 
many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and 
was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.' 7 Many 
painful remedies she had tried ; but they were ineffec- 
tual as they were painful. Many physicians had un- 
dertaken her cure, but presently brought to the end of 
their art, were obliged to confess that this cure exceeded 
their power. Bandied about from one to another, 
elated sometimes by a little hope, which was presently 
to be dashed by a great disappointment, her means of 
living quite wasted and gone, spent in a vain pursuit 
of health which seemed now more remote than ever, 
her case appeared as sad and despairing a one as could 
well be conceived. 

I know of only one sadder ; which yet is sadder, 
because sicknesses of the spirit are worse than sick- 
nesses of the body ; I mean the case of some poor 



306 



THRONGING CHRIST, 



struggling sinner, who, conscious of sin, of a mighty 
power of evil overmastering him and bringing him 
into bondage, has, after some vain attempts to be his 
own healer, his own deliverer, gone here and there to 
the makers of human systems, has been promised by 
one after another of these help and healing, deliver- 
ance from evil, strength to resist it, power to overcome 
it, but has found, alas, after brief dreams of liberty, 
that he is a captive still ; a miserable man, doing the 
evil which he hates, and hating the evil which he does ; 
ever sinking deeper and deeper into bondage, the cords 
of sin being ever drawn more tightly round him, and 
he ever more hopeless of extrication from them ; those 
helpers whose help he once sought, and who promised 
him so much, the wise men and philosophers and mor- 
alists of this world, having nothing bettered, but rather 
left him worse than they found him, miserable comfort- 
ers that they were, and physicians of no value. That 
were a sadder case still ; and yet it is a case so little 
uncommon, that I can well believe one and another 
here present to-day will acknowledge it to be their 
own. To them I shall presently return ; but now to 
proceed with the history which we have begun. 

In this her extremity, in this her blank destitution 
of all hope, the woman heard of Jesus, of his grace 
and power ; and how these two, his ability to help and 
his willingness to help, went hand in hand ; and what 
she heard, she believed. The star of hope, which 
seemed to have set forever, rose once more in her 
heart ; she said within herself, " If I may touch but his 
clothes, I shall be whole." Was not that faith indeed ? 



AND TOUCHING CHRIST. 



307 



To believe of the Lord Jesus, that if only she put her- 
self in relation with Him, strength and health would 
stream forth from Him to her ; to believe that there 
dwelt in Him such fulness of all grace, as that virtue 
and healing grace would freely flow upon her, or upon 
any, who brought themselves, however remotely, — 
touching, it might be, but the hem of his garment, — 
into this faithful contact with Him ; was not that one 
of the noble audacities of faith ? And what she pur- 
posed to do, she did. " She came in the press behind, 
and touched his garment, and straightway the fountain 
of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that 
she was healed of that plague. 77 She could not mistake 
the fact. It witnessed to itself. The pulses of a health- 
ful life were beating in her veins once more. She was," 
and she knew it at once, healed of that plague. Truly 
hope maketh not ashamed. 

And you, I would beseech you also to try, as many 
as have not tried already, whether this, which was 
true for her in the lower sphere and region of things 
natural, is not still more gloriously true in the higher 
sphere of things spiritual. What is your plague, the 
plague of your own heart, for which as yet you have 
found no healing anywhere, after all your toils and 
tears, but only disappointment, defeat, and now well- 
nigh despair that it will ever be healed at all ? I can- 
not tell what it is, but you can ; you know it only too 
well. You know the secrets, the mournful secrets, 
I am bold in most cases to call them, of your own 
spiritual life ; the strength of corruption, the tyr- 
anny of sin, the way in which old sores, which seemed 



308 



THRONGING CHRIST, 



healed for a while, have broken out afresh, and with a 
worse malignity than ever. You have cried, perhaps, 
with Paul, " wretched man that I am, who shall de- 
liver me from the body of this death ?" but you have 
stopped there ; you have never been able to take upon 
your lips the triumphal rejoinder which at once he puts 
in, " I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord," for 
the freedom which I have obtained through Him. 
Well, you have tried many things ; but have you tried 
the one thing which Paul tried, which this woman 
teaches you to try ? many ways of spiritual health, 
but have you made trial of this ? Have you ever 
come to Christ, as she came, and made proof whether 
He would not heal you, He would not deliver you ? 
Perhaps you will say, Yes ; I have not turned my back 
on any of the ordinances of the church ; I have said 
my prayers, have joined in public worship, and, as it 
may be you will add, I have drawn nigh to the holy 
table itself ; but there has been no strength, no virtue, 
in these ordinances for me. They have left me as they 
found me ; my conscience still uncleansed from its 
guilty stains, my corruptions still unsubdued, the plague 
of my heart still the same ; and now I am persuaded 
that what I am, I must continue to be ; that for me, if 
there is any progress, it can only be from bad to 
worse ; and I must carry this conscience not cleansed, 
this spirit not healed, with me to the grave, and to 
those dark judgment-seats which lie beyond the grave. 

Ah, brethren, let none say this. You complain that the 
very ordinances of Christ's church have proven barren 
to you, as unfruitful to you of good as everything else, 



AND TOUCHING CHRIST. 



309 



dry channels by which no streams of blessing were con- 
veyed to your souls. See whether there be not in what 
follows of this very history an explanation of that bar- 
renness and unprofitableness whereof you complain, 
and whether this history does not also suggest a way 
in which these may be removed. I beseech you, then, 
to go along with me in the further consideration of 
this most instructive narrative. We heard how the 
poor woman felt in herself that she was healed of her 
plague. The Evangelist proceeds : " And Jesus, im- 
mediately knowing in Himself that virtue had gone 
out of Him, turned Him about in the press, and said, 
Who touched my clothes ? And his disciples said un- 
to Him, Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and 
sayest Thou, Who touched Me ? And Jesus said, 
Somebody hath touched me ; for I perceive that virtue 
is gone out of me." What I wish to urge on you, and 
0, that I could urge it as it deserves to be urged, is 
the mighty difference, it may be a difference for us as 
of life or death, between " touching" Jesus and " throng- 
ing" Him ; the multitude " thronged" Him ; only this 
faithful woman " touched" Him. There was nothing 
to the outward eye which should distinguish between 
her action and theirs. Jesus was moving now, as he' 
so often did, in the midst of an eager, busy, and rudely 
curious multitude ; He had just been summoned to the 
house of the ruler Jairus, that He might heal his dying 
daughter, or, as it proved, raise his dead. As the Lord 
set forth upon that errand of mercy and power, " much 
people followed Him and thronged Him." Peter and 
the other disciples could see nothing to distinguish this 



310 



THRONGING CHRIST, 



woman from any other member of that eager, inquisi- 
tive, unceremonious multitude which crowded round 
Him, as was their wont ; so that, as you have just 
heard, Peter, who was always ready, and sometimes 
too ready, with his word, is half inclined to take his 
Lord up and rebuke Him for asking this question, 
" Who touched me ?" a question which had so little 
reason in it, seeing that the whole multitude were 
thronging and pressing upon Him at every moment 
and on every side. 

But Christ reaffirms and repeats his assertion, 
" Somebody hath touched Me." He knew the differ- 
ence j He distinguished at once, as by a divine instinct, 
that believing one from the unbelieving many. There 
was that in her which put her in connection with the 
grace, the strength, the healing power which were in 
Him. Do you ask me what this was ? It was faith. 
It was her faith. She came expecting a blessing, be- 
lieving a blessing, and so finding the blessing which 
she expected and believed ; she came saying, as we 
just now heard, " If I may touch but his clothes, I 
shall be whole.' 7 But that careless multitude who 
thronged the Lord, only eager to gratify their curiosi- 
ty, and to see what new wonder He would next do, as 
they desired nothing, expected nothing, from Him, so 
they obtained nothing. Empty they came, and empty 
they went away. It may very well have happened 
that among that crowd there were more than one sick 
and suffering, holden with some painful infirmity or in- 
veterate disease ; but there went forth no virtue from 
the Lord to them. And why not? because they 



AND TOUCHING CHEIST. 



311 



thronged Him, and did not touch Him ; because faith, 
which is as the electric wire along which the spark of 
divine healing should "have run, was wanting on their 
parts, and because, therefore, their contact with the 
Lord was merely external and accidental, and had in 
it no real significance whatever. 

my brethren, is there not here the explanation 
of much, of only too much, in the spiritual lives 
of men, — the explanation of barren sacraments, of 
fruitless prayers, of church-going, of sermon-hearing, 
which, after twenty or thirty years, leave us where they 
found us, not a whit holier, not a whit more conquer- 
ors of our sins or masters of our corruptions, not a 
step nearer to God and heaven, than we were at the 
beginning ? We are of the many that throng Jesus, 
not of the faithful few who touch Him. We bear a 
Christian name, we go through a certain round of 
Christian duties ; we are thus brought outwardly in 
contact with the Lord ; but we come waiting for no 
blessing, and so obtaining no blessing. We enter his 
house, and we never say, " How dreadful is this place ! 
This is none other but the house of God, and the gate 
of heaven." We walk with Him by the way, but we 
never so commune with Him that our hearts burn 
within us. We approach his table, but not saying to 
ourselves, The Lord has appointed to meet me here, 
that He may dwell with me and I in Him ; and I 
will be satisfied with no blessing short of this. In 
everything there is coldness, formality, routine. Faith 
is wanting, faith, the divine hunger of the soul, the 



312 



THRONGING CHRIST, 



emptiness of the soul longing to be filled, and believ- 
ing that it will be filled, out of God's fulness ; and 
because this is so, therefore there goes out no virtue 
from Him to us ; it is never given to us so to touch Him 
as that immediately we know in ourselves that we are 
whole of our plague. 

You who complain, you who, it may be, murmur, that 
the ordinances of God's church are so little fraught 
with grace and strength for your souls, is it not at 
least possible that the explanation of all this barren- 
ness and unprofitableness may be here, in the fact that 
you have been thronging Christ, and not touching 
Him ? Only come to Him now, saying, If I may but 
touch Him, I shall be whole ; only come, looking for 
good, and you will find good ; expecting mercy, and 
you will obtain mercy ; bringing your heart to be 
healed, and it shall be healed. When you read, when 
you meditate, when you hear, when you pray, when 
you partake of the holy Communion, so do it that 
Christ shall be compelled to say, and believe me He 
will rejoice in the compulsion, " Somebody hath touched 
Me." He will not now need to turn round and to in- 
quire who hath done this thing. He will have seen 
thee afar off, thy first timid approaches to Him, thy 
nearer and bolder advances, the faith which brought 
thee at length into immediate contact with Him. He 
was only waiting for this, that so virtue might go 
forth from Him to thee ; and thou, who earnest fear- 
ing and trembling, who earnest, it may be, behind Him, 
as hardly daring to own either to thyself or others 



AND TOUCHING CHRIST. 



313 



what thou wert looking for from Him, shalt go away 
strengthened, reassured, healed, an open confessor of 
the faith ; boldly declaring in the face of all what God 
hath done for thy soul, as this woman declared what 
He had done for her body ; thou too whole of thy 
plague, thine iniquity pardoned, and the ever-flowing 
fountain of thy sin and thy corruption stayed. 

14 



SERMON XXIX. 



Christ's pkayers, and their lesson for us. 

And He withdrew Himself into the wilderness, and prayed. — Luke v. 16. 



HEN we read in this, and in so many other 



f ? passages, that our blessed Lord in the days of 
his flesh offered prayers unto God, it greatly concerns 
us that we do not accept an explanation, only too 
commonly suggested, of these his prayers. It is some- 
times said that Christ our Lord prayed by way of ex- 
ample, that so He might teach us the duty of prayer ; 
and that his prayers had no other purpose and mean- 
ing but this. Doubtless He was our example in this, 
as in every other point. But his prayers were no such 
hollow unreal things as we must needs confess them to 
have been, if such was the only intention which they 
had. An explanation such as this would go far to in- 
troduce a fatal hollowness and insincerity into all our 
manner of regarding Him and his gracious work for 
us ; as though that work had been the scenic represen- 
tation of a life, and not the life itself ; done for the 
effect which it would produce upon others, instead of 
being in every part the true outgrowth and genuine 
utterance of those conditions of humanity under which 
He had been willing to come. Our Lord, the head of 




(314) 



Christ's prayers. 



315 



the race of men, but still man as truly as He was God, 
prayed, as any one of his servants might pray ; because 
in prayer is strength, in prayer is victory over tempta- 
tion, in prayer, and in the grace of God obtained 
through prayer, is deliverance from all evil. He 
prayed, because He came in his human nature to live 
upon his Father's fulness, and not upon his own ; to 
draw life from Him, and not to find it in Himself ; to 
teach us that this was the true glory of the creature, 
not to set up for itself, not to attempt to live an inde- 
pendent life of its own, but evermore to live in God 
and from God. 

Very instructive too is the manner in which this 
notice of his having withdrawn Himself into the wil- 
derness and prayed, is, in the chapter from which my 
text is taken, interposed between, and in the midst of, 
his active ministries and labors of love. It follows 
close upon the record of some of these labors, others 
again of these follow close upon it • that time of his 
brief withdrawal from toil being, so to speak, a 
breathing-time, a time of refreshing, in which He re- 
vived and renewed his strength, and, this done, re- 
turned to that toil again. 

And such times were needed in that life which He 
lived upon earth ; for that life was not a flying from 
the world, lest it should stain and defile Him, but a 
mingling with the world, that He might cleanse and 
purify it. The career of a John Baptist, a preacher in 
the wilderness, whom men might seek and find, but 
who did not himself seek them ; this might be, and 
was, good ; but yet, at the same time, there was a more 



316 



Christ's prayers, 



excellent way even than this, the way which Christ 
chose. No preacher in the wilderness He ; but in 
crowded streets, at marriage-festivals, in the concourse 
of cities, amid all the busiest haunts of men, wherever 
there was a want to relieve, or a woe to assauge, or a 
sin to rebuke, He was there, shedding round Him the 
healing influences of his presence and his power. And 
yet such a life as this, lived for men and among men, 
noble and blessed as it wae, needed that it should have 
its breaks, that the burden of it should not be con- 
tinuous. Even He whose spiritual strength is so im- 
measurably greater than ours, whose whole life was in 
some sort one long connected prayer, even He needed, 
from time to time, to be more especially alone with 
God, to draw new strength and joy from a more fixed 
contemplation of his heavenly Father's face. 

And if this was needful for Him, how much more for 
all others ; for as He was in the world, so are we ; the 
only difference being, that we lie open to the injurious 
influences which it exerts, as He neither did nor could • 
that the evil in the world finds an echo and an answer 
in our hearts, which it found not at all in his. In a 
world where there is so much to dissipate and distract 
the spirit, how needful for us is that communion with 
God, in which alone the spirit collects itself at its true 
centre, which is God, again ; in a world where there 
is so much to ruffle the spirit's plumes, how needful 
that entering into the secret of his pavilion, which will 
alone bring it back to composure and peace ; in a world 
where there is so much to sadden and depress, how 
blessed that communion with Him, in whom is the one 



AND THEIR LESSON FOR US. 



317 



source and fountain of all true gladness and abiding 
joy ; in a world where so much is ever seeking to un- 
hallow our spirits, to render them common and pro- 
fane, how high the privilege of consecrating them anew 
in prayer to holiness and to God. 

Is it not even so ? Would you measure in some sort 
the gains of this communion with God to which we 
are admitted and invited, consider only what we may 
gain by communion with good and holy men, and then 
conclude from this less to that greater. Consider, I 
say, the elevating, ennobling influences which it exer- 
cises on the character to live in habitual intercourse 
with the excellent of the earth, with those whose con- 
versation is in heaven, the tone of whose minds is high 
and lofty and pure. Almost without being aware of it, 
we derive some of their spirit into ourselves ; it is like 
an atmosphere of health which we unconsciously inhale. 
But how much more must this be the case, how far 
mightier the reactive influence for good, when we con- 
tinually set before us, when we live in fellowship with 
Him, who is the highest, the purest, and the best ; in 
whom all perfections meet, from whom all true noble- 
ness proceeds ; when thus, I say, our fellowship is not 
with men, who have caught a few glimpses of the glory 
of God, but with God Himself, from whom all great- 
ness and glory proceed. 

And yet, necessary and blessed as this fellowship 
and communion are, by the confession of all who have 
any experience in the divine life, we must needs ac- 
knowledge sadly that here is a privilege to which men 
require to be invited and exhorted again and again ; 



318 



Christ's prayers, 



that, transcendent dignity and honor as this is, namely, 
to be allowed to speak with the great King, it is 
not always so felt by all. Nay, who is there that 
does not know, by mournful experience, the tempta- 
tions, even if he has grace given him in the main to 
overcome them, which beset him here ? the excuses 
which suggest themselves for praying seldom, for pray- 
ing briefly ; other matters ever seeking to encroach 
upon this prime matter ; the time allotted to it, too 
brief perhaps at the first, being ever in danger of still 
further curtailment ; pleasure at one time, and business 
at another, and indolence at all times, weariness at 
night and sloth in the morning, the company of friends, 
the attraction of books, — these, with a thousand other 
real or fancied demands on our time, seeming all in 
one vast conspiracy to thrust our prayers into by- 
corners of the day, if not to thrust them out of the day 
altogether ; until at length prayer, if it survives at all, 
survives as a slight and barren form, from which all 
strength and vigor have departed ; a mere peppercorn 
rent of our time paid to Him who has given us all our 
time ; a mockery rather than a reverent service of the 
living God. 

But how serious, how disastrous, the consequences 
which must then ensue. For prayer, it is as the ladder 
which Jacob saw, with angels ascending and angels 
descending upon it. But if there be no ascending an- 
gels, there will presently be none descending ; if there 
be no prayers nor supplications going up to heaven, 
there will in a little while be no grace or blessing 
coming down from heaven. In vain will heaven and 



AND THEIR LESSON FOR US. 



319 



earth have been linked together as by a golden chain, 
let down from the throne of God, binding to that throne 
this earth of ours, if, after all, we count ourselves and 
this world which we inhabit but as blind atoms float- 
ing blindly and at random through an infinite space. 

Ah, brethren, how many departures from God, end- 
ing in a total shipwreck of faith, have begun in the 
secret chamber. In some sense, they have all begun 
there. If only we could look into the inner records 
of some young man's life, who, trained in a Christian 
household, and himself seeming to have well begun, 
has yet after a while forfeited the promise of his youth, 
gone forth and forgotten the sanctities of home, and 
the faith pledged not to God alone, but to father and 
mother and sister ; — still loved, and to be for ever 
loved, but with a tearful aching love, how unlike the 
proud love which regarded him once ; — could we look, 
I say, into that story, here, I am sure, would be most 
often found the secret of all. He counted that he 
could do without that which the Saviour Himself 
would not do without — that he could live on his own 
resources, that he could lean upon his own strength. 
The hidden life of the soul, that life which is hidden 
with Christ in God, was neglected ; and thus whatever 
in him of good was once lost, was lost for ever, the 
first impulses to a holy life, to an earnest resisting of 
sin, being spent and exhausted, no other came in their 
room ; little blemishes in the character, which might 
once have been easily removed, grew into huge faults ; 
small sparks of temptation, which might have been 
trodden out at the first, into fierce flames, setting on 



320 



Christ's prayers, 



fire the whole course of nature. And all this will have 
come to pass through neglect of secret communion with 
God, through suffering the life of prayer first to lan- 
guish, and then to die out in the soul. 

But they, on the other hand, who wait upon the 
Lord renew their strength. They find in this waiting 
upon Him that which answers every need and satisfies 
every yearning of their souls ; and this whether as 
respects others or themselves. 

And first, in respect of others. I cannot dwell here 
on intercessory prayer as it deserves to be dwelt on ; 
and yet, in this hour of England's trouble, of an anx- 
iety so deep for many among us * I would fain not 
leave some words unsaid, which may be words in 
season for some. How often it must happen that we 
can reach them whom we love, to do them good, in no 
other way except in this way of prayer. Our beloved 
have passed forth from under our eye, from the pro- 
tecting shadow of our roof. They go in and out before 
us no more, as they did of old. We think of them 
as they move under other skies, amid strange faces, 
exposed to novel temptations, among dangers which 
we can only dimly guess of, and which no forethought 
of ours could avert. We think of them, it may be, in 
stormy seas, beneath fiery suns, amid treacherous foes, 
upon distant and doubtful battle-fields. How good is 
it then that, when powerless in all else, we can still 
pursue them with blessing, and bear them in prayer 

* This Sermon was preached in June, 185?, a few days after the first 
tidings of the Indian mutiny. 



AND THEIR LESSON FOR US. 



321 



before his throne, who can shield and shelter in every 
danger and temptation, so that none of these shall by 
any means hurt them. 

And in respect of ourselves, we have here that 
which will answer all our needs at every turn and 
crisis of our lives. 

Thus has God in his good providence made a hedge 
around us, has He kept all evil from our dwellings ; 
have others been smitten, but not we ; has He given 
us benefits and blessings, which we are only in danger 
of not feeling for the same reason that we do not feel 
the pressure of the atmosphere upon us, namely, that 
this pressure is so equable upon every side as not to 
be perceived ; here is that in which our thankfulness 
may embody itself the best, if only we remember that 
with the duty (too often forgotten) of giving thanks 
there must go hand-in-hand that other duty (still more 
often neglected) of living these thanks as well. 

Or, has He made a breach upon us ; has the cup of 
pain, which comes to all, come also to us and to our 
lips ; have we too discovered, that with the heritage 
of Adam's sin we have the heritage of Adam's sor- 
row, however for a moment it might have seemed as 
though we were to be exempt ; where but in Him 
who smites, where but in the Smiter shall we find the 
Healer ; where but in his hand who has made the 
wound, the balm and the medicine that can make us 
bear its present smart, and expect its future cure ? 

Or, are there times when all things here seem hol- 
low and unreal, with vanity and emptiness written 
upon them ; times when there seems to us, as there 
14* 



322 



Christ's prayers, 



seemed once to the royal preacher at Jerusalem, no 
profit to a man of any labor wrought under the sun, 
but vanity of vanities, and all vanity ; what help is 
there against this, the worst sickness of the soul, save 
in laying hold of Him who is not hollow, nOt unreal, 
not a shadow nor a dream, who abides for ever, and 
who causes his servants to inherit substance ; what 
help but in laying hold of Him, as He can be only 
laid hold of in prayer ? 

Or, again, are there other times when the world 
threatens to become too much to us, the near hillocks 
of time to hide from us the more distant mountains of 
eternity, earth's tinsel to outshine heaven's gold ; it is 
in God, in the light of his presence, as we press into 
that presence, that all things assume their due pro- 
portions, are seen in their true significance, the tinsel 
for tinsel, the gold for gold, that the hillocks subside, 
and the mountain-tops reappear, that the shadows flee 
away, and the eternal substances remain. 

Or, is there some unwelcome task to be done to 
which duty plainly points, but which we would fain 
avoid, some cross which our God would have us to 
take up, but from which we shrink with a shuddering 
fear ; it is only in Him from whom all strength pro- 
ceeds, who bore his own cross so meekly up the hill 
of scorn, that we shall find a strength which is equal 
to this need. 

Or, do we need (and who is there that does not 
need ?) that peace which is above all peace, that 
purged conscience which only the precious blood of 
the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world 



AND THEIR LESSON FOR US. 



323 



can impart, it is in prayer to the Father of mercies, 
as He may be approached through his dear Son, that 
this boon and blessing, the best even in the rich treas- 
ury of heaven, this conscience purged from sin, from 
its guilt, its stain, and its power, can be obtained. 

To sum up all which has been said : — consider the 
great High Priest of our profession, who Himself 
showed the way of obedience to his own precept, 
" that men ought always to pray, and not to faint 
consider too for ourselves the blessedness of being 
allowed to bathe our spirit's wings as in living 
streams, of running and not being weary ; of being 
able to bring everything that is distorted within us, 
that it may be made straight ; everything that is 
weak, that it may be strengthened ; all that is dark, 
that it may be illumined ; all that is rebellious, that it 
may be subdued ; — consider this, and Who it is that 
invites, beckons, entreats, commands us to this ; and 
then consider how great at once our guilt and our 
folly must be, if, with such a throne of grace provided 
for us, we only approach it languidly and rarely ; if, 
with such powers of the world to come brought with- 
in our reach, we do not earnestly lay hold of them ; 
how just our doom will be, if, when God was ready 
to give, we did not care to ask ; if, when He was 
waiting to be found, we were not willing to seek ; 
if, when heaven's door would have opened to our 
knocking, we counted ourselves so far unworthy of 
eternal life, or rather counted eternal life so little to 
us, that we did not care so much as earnestly to knock 
at that door. 



SERMON XXX. 



THE LONG-SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 
Thy gentleness hath made me great. — Psalm xviii. 35. 

LONG-SUFFERING, or slowness to anger, is the 
glory of man, as it is the glory of God. It is the 
glory of man, as is well declared in those words of the 
wise king of Israel, " The discretion of a man deferreth 
his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a transgres- 
sion words which, like all the words of this book 
of Proverbs, the more we meditate upon them, the 
more their wonderful depth and wisdom will appear. 
Weak and violent men, — and commonly those who 
are one are also the other, weakness and violence 
going hand in hand, and completing one another, — 
are swift to wrath, unable to defer it, unable, where 
this behoves, to lay it wholly aside, and to pass over 
a transgression. But the wise, and those for whom 
any glory may justly be claimed, are very far from 
this impotence of mind. Not that they cannot on 
just occasion, in the cause, for instance, of God and 
of his outraged truth, be angry. But they will be 
slow to anger ; not roused to it without a cause, or 
on every slight and trivial provocation ; and still 
slower to execute the suggestions of anger, as know- 
ing how easily these may be precipitate, or excessive ; 

(324) 



THE LONG-SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 325 

and even where they are not violations of strict jus- 
tice, still violations of that charity which " suffer eth 
long and is kind." 

But it is of this long-suffering, not as it is the glory 
of man, but the glory of God, that I desire this day 
to speak. It is indeed a constant attribute of Him ; 
one which He evermore in Scripture claims for Him- 
self, which those who speak good things of Him ever- 
more claim for Him. When the Lord, on a very sol- 
emn occasion, namely, the second giving of the law, 
passed before Moses, and proclaimed to him his Name, 
what was the Name which He proclaimed ? It was 
this, " The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, 
long-suffering-, and abundant in goodness and truth ; 
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and 
transgression and sin.' ; * This is the chief passage; 
but there are also many more to the same effect, which 
will easily suggest themselves to your remembrance. 

But this slowness to anger, this long-suffering or 
forbearance on God's part toward those who provoke 
Him every day, and in the face of all their provoca- 
tions, what, it may be asked, does it particularly de- 
clare concerning Him, that He should thus claim it as 
a part of his excellent greatness ? 

It declares, in the first place, his poiver. He has 
no need to hasten his work, lest if He do not execute 
a sentence at once, He may not be able to execute it 
at all, the offender in some way or other eluding his 
grasp, and escaping beyond his reach. There can be 



* Exod. xxxiv. 6. 



326 



THE LONG-SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 



no fugitives from his justice who fills heaven and 
earth, to whom all the ages and all the worlds belong. 
What he does not punish now, He can punish by and 
by ; what he does not punish here, He can punish 
there ; what not in this world, in the next. He is, in 
the words of the Psalmist, " strong and patient 
patient, because He is strong, because all power be- 
longeth unto Him. What need for him to be in a 
hurry ? He may well defer his anger who has all 
time and all eternity in which to work out the coun- 
sels of his will, whom none can escape, being as He 
is Lord and absolute disposer of men alike on this 
side of the grave and on the other. 

But the long-suffering of God declares better things 
than these, tells of attributes in Him more glorious 
even than his power. It is a declaration of his love, ' 
not willing that any should perish, but that all should 
come to repentance. Here is the true secret of Christ's 
forbearance with sinners. He knows what powers of 
the world to come are at work in his church for their 
conversion, and, being converted, for their perfect res- 
toration to spiritual health and strength ; the efficacy 
of that blood which He once, and once for all, shed 
upon his cross, the prevailing might of that intercession 
which He is evermore carrying forward in heaven. 
He knows the effectual operation of the Holy Spirit in 
quickening those that were even dead in their tres- 
passes and sins. He knows how the man who is stand- 
ing out the most obstinately against Him now, who is 
most fiercely in arms against his own blessedness, may 
to-morrow throw down his arms, yield himself van- 



THE LONG-SUFFERIXG OP CHRIST. 



327 



quished, and suffer himself to be led, like Paul, a trophy 
and captive of the divine power and love through the 
world. 

And as the eye of the cunning lapidary detects in 
the rugged pebble, just digged from the mine, the pol- 
ished diamond that shall sparkle on the diadem of a 
king ; or as the sculptor in the rough block of marble, 
newly hewn from the quarry, beholds the statue of 
perfect grace and beauty which is latent there, and 
waiting but the touch of his hand, — so He who sees 
all, and the end from the beginning, sees oftentimes 
greater wonders than these. He sees the saint in the 
sinner, the saint that shall be in the sinner that is j the 
wheat in the tare ; the shepherd feeding the sheep in 
the wolf tearing the sheep ; Paul the preacher of the 
faith in Saul the persecutor of the faith ; Israel a prince 
with God in Jacob the trickster and the supplanter ; 
Matthew the apostle in Levi the publican ; a woman 
that should love much in the woman that was sinning 
much ; and in some vine of the earth bringing forth 
wild grapes and grapes of gall, a tree which shall yet 
bring forth good fruit, and wine to make glad the 
heart ; so that when some, like those over-zealous ser- 
vants in the parable, would have Him to pluck it up, 
and to cast it without more ado into the wine-press of 
the wrath of Almighty God, He exclaims rather, i: De- 
stroy it not, for a blessing is in it •" and is well content 
to await the end. 

And even where this proves not so, where the riches 
of that grace and long-suffering appear to have been 
spent in vain, wasted upon obdurate sinners, who de- 



328 THE LONG-SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 

spise these to the last, still the manifestations of that 
grace and long-suffering shall not therefore have been 
for naught. They shall have served their purpose, and 
if not that purpose which He most desired, which was 
nearest his heart, namely, that of bringing men to re- 
pentance and to life, — if not that, yet another ; I mean 
that of clearing the righteousness of God. For God 
in his infinite condescension is not content with merely 
being just and righteous in all his ways ; He desires to 
approve Himself such, and that his justice and right- 
eousness and goodness should so plainly appear to all 
the world, so lifted above all cavil, that none should 
be able, with the less apparent grounds of reason, to 
call it in question. And thus, in regard of the final 
condemnation of wicked men, and that severe and ter- 
rible doom which He shall one day execute upon them, 
He will be clear when He is judged ; every mouth shall 
be stopped. No one shall be able to say that the long- 
suffering of God had not waited for him ; or that, 
however guilty, he had, like the wretched Haman, been 
hastened and huddled to his doom.* 

So far from this, nothing is more remarkable than 
the slow advent of the divine judgments. The king's 
wrath may be as messengers of death, but because it is 
so, therefore it is long before the King of kings suffers 
his whole displeasure to arise. Note, I beseech you, 
the way in which He warns before He threatens, threat- 
ens before He strikes, strikes lightly before He strikes 
heavily, strikes heavily before He causes that blow 



* Esther vii 8-10. 



THE LONG-SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 329 

which shall leave no room for another to descend. 
Note how this is so everywhere, in Scripture, in the 
lives of others, and in your own. Note it in Scripture. 
If God brings in a flood on the world of the ungodly, 
it is only after his long-suffering has waited for them 
while the Ark was a-preparing ; * and though his Spirit, 
as on that occasion He declared, should not always 
strive with man, " yet his days/ 7 that is, his days of 
grace, " shall be an hundred and twenty years." Again, 
" the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full ;"f there- 
fore they are allowed still to abide in the land, and 
their excision root and branch is for centuries defer- 
red ; they must fill up the measure of their sins before 
their judgment can arrive. The guilty cities, Sodom 
and Gomorrah, cannot perish before God has gone 
down and seen whether they have done altogether ac- 
cording to the cry of it ; J words spoken after the man- 
ner of men, yet with a blessed truth behind them, that, 
namely, of the extreme deliberation with which the 
divine judgments proceed. And this patience, this 
long-suffering, this deliberation, they are, as I have 
said, if possible, for the salvation of man ; and if not 
for this; if he is resolute to perish, if he has made a 
covenant with death and hell which he will not break, 
then for the vindication of God, that He may be justi- 
fied in his doings, and clear when He is judged. 

My dear brethren, spared to see another Lent, that 
season when it so well becomes us to consider the rela- 
tion between our sins and God's judgments on the one 



* 1 Pet. iii. 20. 



f Gen. xv. 16. 



X Gen. xviil 21. 



330 THE LONG-SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 

hand, our sins and his mercies on the other, if such as 
I have described it is the meaning of God's forbear- 
ance with us sinners, it concerns us very nearly that 
we inquire what interpretation we have put, or are 
putting, upon it. Plainly there are two ways in which 
it may be accepted by us. There is a blessed use, and 
also a most wicked abuse, which we may make of it. 
Surely he makes a wicked abuse, who, through a seem- 
ing impunity, is emboldened in sinning ; begins to 
argue that the eyes of the Lord are not in every place, 
beholding the evil and the good ; that He does not set 
a difference between him that serveth Him and him 
that serveth Him not ; that all things come alike to 
all ; the man who says to himself, I have done evil, 
and no harm has happened to me, and in this thought 
strengthens himself to do it again. It is only too fre- 
quent an abuse of God's long-suffering. "Because 
sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, 
therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in 
them to do evil." * 

But this tardiness of vengeance, this lame foot with 
which it seems to lag and halt after successful wicked- 
ness, this fact that sentence against an evil work is not 
executed immediately, means something very different 
from that which it is thus taken to mean. It is no 
pledge of safety to the sinner. It argues no listlessness, 
no moral indifference to the eternal distinctions between 
good and evil on the part of Him who is the Judge of 
the whole earth, and by whom actions are weighed. 



* Eccles. viii. 11. 



THE LONG-SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 331 

Neither is it that He is talking, or pursuing, or on a 
journey, or sleeping, and therefore could not avenge, 
if He chose, with the quick recoil and prompt back- 
stroke of justice, his own violated law. 

But what does it mean ? It means, first, that Christ 
has died, died for sinners ; and thus the decree, " In the 
day that thou sinnest thou shalt surely die/' has been 
suspended for all sinners, and may yet be reversed, if 
thou wilt repent and believe, for thee. It means, that 
there is yet room for thee to say, What have I done ? 
to take words, and turn to thy God, and thus to have 
all thy sins blotted out, done away, cast into the deep 
of the sea, not mentioned against thee any more. But 
shouldst thou, alas, put these benefits away, this long- 
suffering of God means also, that He who fills heaven 
and earth, who is from everlasting to everlasting, can 
afford to wait. Why should He not? Where wilt 
thou go where his hand cannot reach thee, where his 
justice cannot overtake thee ? Wilt thou take the 
wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts 
of the sea, He is there. Wilt thou climb up to heaven, 
or dig down to hell, He is there also. Flee from Him 
thou canst not. To flee to Him is thy only way of de- 
liverance. 

Oh, then, if one is here present to-day who is at this 
moment despising the riches of the goodness and for- 
bearance and long-suffering of God, arguing from past 
impunity to future, blessing himself in his heart, and 
saying, " I shall have peace, though I walk in the im- 
agination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst/ 7 * 



* Deut. xxix. 19. 



332 



THE LONG-SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 



believe nothing of the kind. The judgments of God 
which thou art defying may be slow in arriving, but 
they arrive at last, and oftentimes only the more terri- 
ble for their delay. The old heathen, whom we often 
think of as so dark, were yet not so dark but that they 
understood this ; for they had a proverb, " The mill of 
God grinds late, but grinds to powder and we have 
our own to match it, " Vengeance has leaden feet, but 
iron hands f leaden feet to mark how slow its ap- 
proaches often are, iron hands to signify the crushing 
weight with which it comes down at the last. Take, 
then, oh, take this forbearance of God to thee as He 
intended, as He still intends it. He by it leadeth thee 
to repentance. He does not drive, He does not drag, 
He does not compel ; thou mayest, alas, resist if thou 
wilt ; but He leadeth thee to repentance, draws thee, 
if only thou wilt follow. Kiss the Son, lest He be 
angry indeed ; consent to be blessed by Him, to be 
pardoned, to be healed ; consent to be one of those 
who shall say to Him through the ages of a blissful 
eternity, " Thy gentleness hath made me great." 

But whether thou wilt or no, a few words I must 
say, ere we close, to you, brethren beloved in the Lord, 
who have understood what the meaning of this long- 
suffering of Christ to you might be, who have had grace 
given you to profit by it, to you whom his gentleness has 
made great. See, I would say, that you greatly praise 
Him for this. If you do not praise Him, no other 
will. The sinner, so long as he is in his sin, under- 
stands nothing of this forbearance of Christ ; though 
he is himself then the most signal and immediate object 



THE LONG-SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 



333 



of it. He must have come out of his sin before he per- 
ceives anything of this. Then, indeed, he will never 
cease to admire the long-suffering which has spared 
him and saved him ; as the man who has come out of 
his drunkenness stands in wonder and awe at the per- 
ilous places, the abrupt edges of precipices, on which 
he walked just now, and knew not that God kept him 
back when there was but a single step between him 
and death. Exactly so, men must have come out of 
their sin before they can praise G-od, who spared them 
in their sin. 

Meanwhile you must praise Him on their behalf and 
on your own. And, ah, when you praise Him on your 
own, when you praise the long-suffering which waited 
for your repentance, do not limit the times of his for- 
bearance to those times of your former ignorance, as 
though you had not experienced and had not needed 
that same forbearance since. Thou hast needed, and 
wilt need it to the very end. True, thou dost not any 
longer drink up iniquity like water, nor do evil with 
both hands earnestly, nor sin presumptuously and with 
a high hand against God. But yet measure back in 
memory the way which thou hast trodden since thou 
hast known Him, his grace, his loving-kindness, since 
He met thee with the kiss of peace, and put on thee the 
new robe, and called thee by a new name ; and then ask 
thyself where thou wouldst now be, if that hour of recon- 
ciliation had been the final limit of his forbearance ; 
if thou hadst not had ever since to do with a Saviour 
of infinite forbearance ; if He, an Advocate with the 
Father, who first made for thee a way to the throne of 



334 THE LONG-SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 

grace, had not kept that way continually open, which 
thou by thy later sins wouldst else long ago have effec- 
tually blocked up and obstructed again. For number 
up, if thou canst, the provocations with which thou hast 
provoked Him since the day that thou knewest Him — 
thy heartless prayers, thy wandering devotions, thy 
careless communions ; all thine excess in things per- 
mitted ; all thy allowance of things doubtful ; all thy 
dalliance with temptations ; thy vain thoughts, and 
covetous desires, and proud imaginations ; thy mur- 
murings, thy disputings, thy discontents ; all thy rash, 
foolish, uncharitable words ; all thy harsh judgments 
and speeches about others ; all in which thou hast 
sought ease for thyself and shunned labor, evaded the 
Cross of Christ and the reproach of Christ, — the thou- 
sand forms of thy sin ; — number up all these, each of 
them, it may be, severally small, yet not small as com- 
mitted against so great love, and, alas, making up by 
their multitude what they may have wanted in their 
weight ; and then ask thyself what would be thy place 
now in the church of the redeemed, what would be 
thy place hereafter in the church of the glorified — 
would it be a place at all — except for a forbearance 
higher than heaven? — and see that thou bless and 
praise God, not merely that thou hadst once, and in 
times past, to do with a Lord of infinite long-suffering, 
but that thou hast to do with such an One now, and 
wilt have such, as thou wilt need such, even to the end. 



SERMON XXXI. 



david's sin, repentance, pardon, and punishment. 

And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And 
Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin ; thou 
shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great 
occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blavspheme, the child also 
that is born unto thee shall surely die. — 2 Samuel, xii. 13, 14. 

THE story of David's great sin, of the great forgive- 
ness which blotted out that sin, of the great pun- 
ishment in this present time which, notwithstanding, 
followed that sin, all this is familiar to us ; yet not so 
familiar but that we may find in it lessons which, if 
old, are also new, which may again and again be profit" 
ably prest home upon our hearts. Some of these I 
shall endeavor to draw out from this Scripture, and, 
as I would fain trust, for your profit" and for mine. 

When we read, then, the history of David's fall, 
what surprises and somewhat perplexes us, at the first, 
is, the apparent suddenness of it. There seems no 
preparation, no warning. It is as though the sun, with 
no announcement beforehand, should suffer a total 
eclipse at noorfday. It will generally happen that 
these falls, sudden and inexplicable as to a remote or 
careless observer they may appear, are yet explicable 
enough. Some careless walking, some worldly habits, 

(335) 



336 



david's sin, eepentance, 



some self-indulgent ways, these sufficiently account for 
a catastrophe which, with all its seeming suddenness, 
had yet, in fact, been long in preparing. Neglected 
duties, slurred over or omitted prayers, unmortified 
corruptions, pride, self-confidence, worldliness, these 
had eaten into and eaten out the heart of the man's 
religion ; and thus, when the blast of a sudden temp- 
tation struck him, he fell ; as a tree decayed at the 
core might fall in an instant, although to a careless 
beholder it had showed, only an instant before, as 
green and strong as any tree in the forest. 

But, indeed, if we look closely at David's history, 
and with the anxious scrutiny which such a case de- 
serves, we shall perceive that it furnishes no exception. 
If only we look back to the first verse of the chapter 
preceding, we shall find the explanation there ; not 
obtruded, not thrust upon us, for that is not the way 
of Scripture ; but yet an intimation sufficiently giveb 
of this, namely, how it came to pass that the man of 
God, the man after G-od's own heart, should have ever 
given room for words like these to be written about 
him : " But the thing that David had done displeased 
the Lord."* We find it written there, " At the time 
when kings go forth to battle, David sent Joab, and 
his servants with him, and all Israel, and they be- 
sieged Kabbah, but David tarried still at Jerusalem. "f 
Had he gone himself, " at the time when kings go forth 
to battle," instead of sending Joab; how different 
would have been the issue of all. Had he been endur- 



° 2 Sam. adi. 27. f 2 Sam. xi. 1. 



PARDON, AND PUNISHMENT. 



337 



ing hardness with the armies of Israel, these temp- 
tations to luxury and uncleanness would probably 
never have come near him ; certainly he would not 
have succumbed beneath them. But he whom adversi- 
ty could not break, who had kept himself true to God 
when he was chased like a partridge on the hills, was 
giving way under the flatteries of prosperity, the seduc- 
tions of ease. 

What teaching, my brethren, is here. Surely if the 
Scripture has said, " In the day of adversity consider/ 7 * 
it might have said, indeed it has said in a thousand 
ways, In the day of prosperity beware. When all 
things are going well with thee ; when thou hast no 
trouble anywhere, no thorn in the flesh, no least cloud 
in the firmament above thee ; when it seems as though 
God had made an hedge about thee, and about thine 
house, and about all that thou hast, on every side ; when 
the world speaks thee fair, and thy very enemies are at 
peace with thee, — then be thou ware. This time, which 
thou countest perhaps a time of no trial at all, may 
be indeed the time for thee of thy chiefest trial of all ; 
whether thou wilt be still quick and earnest in prayer, 
when that prayer is not wrung out from thee by some 
pressing and urgent need ; whether thou wilt be still 
watchful over thyself, when there is so much to per- 
suade to unwatchfulness ; whether thou wilt still gird 
up the loins of thy mind, when there is so much that 
would lead thee to ungird them. If thou sittest still 
when thou oughtest to be going forth to the battle of 



• EccL vii. 14. 

15 



338 



david's sin, repentance, 



the Lord, if tliou puttest others to labors from which 
thou shrinkest thyself ; who can say how near the day 
of thy fall may be ? Suddenly, in an instant, some 
great sin, matter of grief for the church and of mock- 
ery for the world, shall overtake thee. Or, if not this, 
yet worse than this ; all thy good resolutions, thy holy 
practices, shall thaw and melt away under this sun of 
worldly prosperity ; and though thou fall not, as 
David fell, into one notorious transgression, yet, for 
thee more perilous still, the world may, little by little, 
draw thee back altogther into its own bosom, assimilate 
thee wholly to itself. Take, then, this for a first lesson, 
that prosperous times are perilous times. " In all times 
of our wealth, good Lord, deliver us." 

But here is another teaching ; the way, namely, in 
which sins are linked to one another, in which, as by 
a terrible necessity, one leads on to a second, and the 
second to a third, and so on. David, giving way 
to his lust, meant to be an adulterer ; but he did not 
mean to incur the woe pronounced against him " that 
giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to 
him, that makest him drunken also ; ; * still less did he 
intend to be a murderer. " Is thy servant a dog, that 
he should do this great thing ?"f would assured 1 ^ have 
been his indignant reply, if any had shown him this in 
the prospect, this as the goal towards which he was 
bound. It is still the same. The tempter shows but 
a single step. It is only this one thing, and then thou 
may est stop ; only thus far, and then thou maycst 



* Hab. ii. 15 ; cf. 2 Samuel xii. 13. 



f 2 } ' . 1 5a viii. 1& 



PARDON, AND PUNISHMENT. 



339 



pause, or go back, if thou wilt. But it never proves 
so. The great enemy of souls is iu nothing more 
skilful than in breaking down the bridges of retreat 
behind the sinner. Wrong may become worse wrong, 
but it never becomes right. " Let them fall from one 
wickedness to another — one has said, and has well 
said, that this curse is the most fearful one pronounced 
anywhere in the scripture ; sin punished with worse 
sin ; the sinner handed over from crime to crime ; 
thinking to do a little evil, and finding himself inex- 
orably bound in to much. Oh, how often has this 
repeated itself in the history of men. They have 
launched themselves a little, it was to be only a very 
little, from the safe shore of God's commandments ; 
and currents and tides and eddies, of which they knew 
nothing and dreamt nothing, haVe presently caught 
them, and borne them quite out of sight of land, to 
be swallowed up in quicksands or dashed on rocks ; in 
one way or another to make miserable shipwreck of all. 
Close walking with God is the only safe walking. 

Then do not miss this lesson, — the ignoble servitude 
to men in which the sinner is very often through his 
sin entangled. Mark, for it is very instructive, how 
David becomes in fact the servant of Joab, from the 
moment that he has made Joab the partaker of his 
evil counsels, the accomplice of his crime. And Joab 
feels this, and will make David feel it too. What 
covert irony and scorn is couched in the message in 
which the ungodly captain announces to the king* that 



2 Sam. xi. 20. 



340 



david's six, repentance, 



his will lias been accomplished, and Uriah is no more. 
Then note the insolent and taunting speeches which 
Joab in aftertimes addressed to David, but which the 
king did not venture to resent •* the acts of violence, 
directly contrary to the king's will and honor, as, for 
instance, the murder of Abner,f in which he allowed 
himself, but which David as little ventured to punish. 
We can only account for all this on one supposition. 
There was a guilty secret between the two • Joab had 
but to speak the word, and David would stand a con- 
victed murderer before all his people. Joab was, 
therefore, David's master. Let no man in this sense 
be thy master. Let no man know that of thee, which 
if he chose to reveal, would cast thee down from the 
fair esteem and reputation which thou enjoyest before 
men. That man in h?s worldly position may be as the 
dirt beneath thy feet, but he is indeed thy master ; se- 
cretly thou tremblest before him ; and he knows this, 
and will make thee feel that he knows it. So live, so 
walk, a child of light and of the day, that thou need- 
est fear nothing, though every man should proclaim in 
market-places and on house-tops the very worst about 
thee that he knows. 

And yet once more ; note the darkness of heart 
which sin brings over its servants. David is not en- 
tangled merely in the sin of a moment, borne away by 
the passion of an instant, then to look back with hor- 
ror and dismay at what in his brief madness he has 
done. For well-nigh a whole year he has lain in his 

*2 Sam. xix. 5-7. f Ibid, xviii. 5, 14 ; sx 10. 



PAKDON, AND PUNISHMENT. 



341 



sin, for a large part of this time in his double sin, each 
of them a damning one ; and yet all the while his con- 
science is in a death-like sleep, so that it needs a thun- 
der voice as from heaven, the rebuke of a prophet, to 
rouse him from this lethargy. And who was it that 
thus slept this sleep of death ? Was it a common man, 
one who had never known what it was to walk near to 
God and in the light of his countenance ; one who had 
never had any clear insight into the length and breadth 
and spirituality of God's law ; one who had never 
been jealous with a godly jealousy over himself and 
all his ways ? It was none of these. Rather, it was 
one who had testified in so many ways his insight into 
the length and breadth of the law of the Lord, his 
sense of God's favor and the light of his countenance 
as better than the life itself. Wonder of wonders, it 
is he who thus lies so long, dead in his trespass and his 
guilt. So strange is the deceitfulness of sin ; to be 
compared to nothing more fitly than to that vampire- 
bat which we read of in the West Indies, that sucks 
the blood of the sleeper, and ever the meanwhile fans 
him with its mighty wings, that he may not waken, but 
still sink and sink into deeper slumber, though his very 
life-blood is being drained away. Was there any like- 
lihood that David would have ever wakened, if God 
had not sent him that message ; shown him, who could 
see so clearly the mote in another's eye* the beam 
in his own ; if the words of the prophet, " Thou art 
the man," had never rung in his ears ? 



* 2 Samuel xii. 5. 

19* 



342 



david's sin, repentance, 



" Thou art the man." Arrows shot at a venture 
have sometimes found their way through the joints of 
a sinner's armor ; but here was an arrow, shot with so 
true an aim that it could not miss its mark, or fail to 
come home. Promptly on that word follows another 
word, even the unreserved confession of the royal cul- 
prit, so striking in its simplicity, " I have sinned against 
the Lord ;" and then on that the free forgiveness of a 
gracious God, " The Lord also hath put away thy sin ; 
thou shalt not die." Many things are here to observe ; 
and first, the blessing that goes along with a full, free, 
unreserved confession of sin, being, as this is, the sure 
token of a true repentance. So long as a man puts 
himself on the defensive with God, seeks excuses for 
himself, would justify himself in whole or in part, so 
long there is no real, certainly no thorough, work of 
grace in his heart. The Spirit has not convinced him 
of sin ; he has not yet seen the glory, the all-sufficiency, 
of Christ, else he would not seek help in the fewness 
of his sins, but in the multitude of God's mercies in 
Christ J esus ; he would not say, as he is now saying, 
Heal my sin, for it is small • but, as the Psalmist said ? 
" Heal my sin, for it is great." Go through all Scrip- 
ture and you will everywhere find, that where repent- 
ance is sincere, there confession is ample. The man 
gives all glory to God, and takes all shame to himself. 
This is, in one sense, all that a man can do after he 
has offended. He cannot do away the least tittle of 
his offences ; he cannot pay off a single penny of the 
ten thousand talents in which he is indebted ; but he 
can put his mouth in the dust, and say, " Righteousness 



PAKDON, AND PUNISHMENT. 



343 



belongeth unto Thee, but unto us confusion of face 
but he can say, " I have sinned against the Lord f and 
until he says this from his heart, his sin remaineth. He 
hides it, and therefore God will lay it bare ; he makes 
little of it, and therefore God will make much ; he 
does not judge it, and therefore God will. 

What a motive here for coming to Him with true 
hearts ; concealing nothing, extenuating nothing; jus- 
tifying nothing ; keeping back from Him not one of 
the hurts and sores of our souls ; though we could 
not endure to shoYv them to the dearest and most 
trusted friend that we have, lest he should loathe and 
abhor us, that we should yet show them unto Him. 
He will not loathe and abhor ; He is the same gra- 
cious God upon the throne of heaven, who on earth 
touched the leper, and suffered Himself to be touched 
by the woman that was a sinner. He will touch the 
leprous spot in our souls., and even there, at his cleans- 
ing touch, the flesh will come again as the flesh of a 
little child ; and that sin which, unconfessed, and 
therefore unforgiven, should have appeared to our 
endless confusion on that day, shall now be put quite 
away, sought for and not found ; for He shall have 
cast it behind his back, into the depths of the sea, 
into any place where it shall not appear any more for 
ever. So blessed are the fruits of free, unreserved, 
hearty confession of sin. 

And yet, my Christian brethren, while it was thus 
in regard of the eternal penalty of David's sins, while 
he who has fully confessed is fully forgiven, there is 
still, as concerns this present life, a sad " howbeit " 



344 



david's sin, repentance, 



behind : " Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast 
given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to 
blaspheme, the child that is born to thee shall surely 
die and with this the prophecy of a woe reaching 
much further, of sorrows searching far more deeply, 
than this of a new-born infant's death : " Now, there- 
fore, the sword shall never depart from thine house. 
. . . Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of 
thine house," with more to the same effect. You see 
how it fared with him. God restored his favor to 
him ; David walked again in the light of God's coun- 
tenance ; he was most truly his child ; forgiven, 
cleansed, received back. It was not that God for- 
gave him only partially, and so punished him still. 
There is no such thing as a partial forgiveness ; it is 
yes or no ; God forgives all or none ; a man is in his 
sin, or he is not in his sin. David was not in his sin ; 
God's word by the prophet had absolved him from 
that ; and yet this stroke came upon him at once, and 
in a little while those others which were behind it ; 
for this was only the beginning of sorrows, and far 
sadder and more searching were behind. The sword 
never did depart from his house ; evil did rise up 
against him from the bosom of his own family. It is 
hardly too much to say, that his after story, to the 
end of his life, is a scroll written within and without 
with lamentations, and mourning, and woe. 

Do you ask how this could be, how this was recon- 
cilable with the free and full forgiveness which he 
had just received ? In this way. God had taken 
from him the eternal penalty of his sin ; He had said, 



PARDOX, AXD PUXISHMEXT. 



345 



" Thou shalt not die but He had never said, Thy 
sin shall not be bitter to thee. Nay rather, it should 
be bitter. He should see the stamp and visible im- 
press of his own sin in all the thousand shapes of suf- 
fering and anguish which should visit him henceforth. 
He had violated the awful sanctities of the family 
life ; had denied the wife, and slain the husband with 
the sword ; all was measured back into his bosom ; 
quarrels, incests, rebellions, murders, stroke upon stroke, 
breach upon breach, blood touching blood, fearful 
crimes more fearfully avenged, — these, as they fill up 
the pages of the after history of David, declare to us 
that the word of the prophet was not spoken in vain, 
that it did not fall to the ground ; that the thing 
which David had done had displeased, and greatly 
displeased, the Lord. 

Would God we might all lay to heart as they de- 
serve the most serious and most solemn lessons which 
are here ! God may forgive his children their sin ; 
yea, if they claim forgiveness aright, in the one pre- 
vailing name, He will forgive them, He must forgive 
them ; his faithfulness and his justice are pledged to 
it ; and yet, for all this, He may make their sin most 
bitter to them here ; teaching them in this way its 
evil, which they might else have been in danger of for- 
getting, the aggravation which there is in the sins of a 
child, in sins against light, against knowledge, against 
love. Ah, brethren, how easily may we be laying up 
sorrow for ourselves against a day that is coming, 
weaving dark and sombre threads into the innermost 
tissue of our lives, stripping bare those lives of some 



346 



david's sin and repentance. 



richest blessing in the future, which now in very faith- 
fulness our God must withhold from us. Oh, then, if 
we would lead happy Christian lives ; if we would not 
thus sow to ourselves large harvests of a future sor- 
row ; if we would not hush the voices of joy in our 
homes ; if we would spare ourselves many a stroke, 
many a wound, which will else come upon us, let us 
seek to lead holy lives, fleeing from sin as from the 
face of a serpent. The sins of God's saints and ser- 
vants, let them not embolden us to sin ; for we see 
how they were plagued for their offences. Rather let 
those sins of theirs be motives to us for watchfulness, 
motives for fear, motives for a close and careful walk- 
ing with God. If David, after all his acquaintance 
with the things of God, was betrayed by a corrupt 
and treacherous heart, what may not I fear from the 
corruption and treachery of mine ? If he, a standard- 
bearer, fell, how shall I, the least and weakest in the 
host of the Lord, hope to stand, unless I lean on some 
higher and better strength than my own ? This mourn- 
ful story of David's sin will not have been written in 
vain for us, if it thus sends us in more humble, earnest, 
frequent prayer to God ; if we take the precept of 
the Apostle, " Be not high-minded, but fear," as for us 
the moral of all. 



SERMON XXXII. 

WHAT WE CAX. AND WHAT WE CANNOT. CARRY AWAY 
WHEN WE DIE. 

He shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth ; neither shall 
his pomp follow him. — Psalm xlix. 17 (Prayer-Book version). 

I REMEMBER an eastern legend, which I have 
always thought furnished a remarkable, though 
unconscious, commentary on these words of the Psalmist. 
Alexander the Great, we are there told, being upon his 
deathbed, commanded that, when he was carried forth 
to the grave, his hands should not be wrapped, as was 
usual, in the serecloths, but should be left outside the 
bier, so that all men might see them, and might see 
that they were empty ; that there was nothing in 
them ; that he, born to one empire, and the conqueror 
of another, the possessor, while he lived, of two 
worlds, of the East and of the West and of the treas- 
ures of both, yet now when he was dead could retain 
no smallest portion of those treasures ; that in this 
matter the poorest beggar and he were at length upon 
equal terms. This was his comment, or the comment 
of those who may have devised this legend, on the 
text of the Psalmist, " He shall carry nothing away 
with him. when he dieth ; neither shall his pomp fol- 
low him." This was his anticipation of the declara- 

(347) 



348 WHAT WE CAN, AND WHAT WE CANNOT, 

tion of the Apostle, " We brought nothing into this 
world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." 
• And we may here fitly ask with Solomon, " What 
can the man do that cometh after the king ?" If it 
was thus with that mightiest king, shall it not, by 
much stronger reason, be thus with meaner men ? 
They too must leave what they have gotten to others ; 
for they cannot carry it away with them, one jot or 
tittle of it, to that other world for which they are 
bound. And that word leave, which I have just em- 
ployed, how striking is the use we make of it in our 
common conversation, when we are speaking of the 
disposition of his property which some one who is 
lately dead has made. We say, perhaps, he has left 
a good deal, left a good estate to this son, a large por- 
tion to that daughter. We do but use the word as a 
synonym for bequeathed. But what unconscious irony 
there is in the phrase ; what a profound lesson, as 
there is in so many of our common phrases, if we 
would but give heed to it. Yes, indeed, he has left 
it ; as others, many of them far mightier than he, 
have left whatever they called here for a little while 
their own ; as Dives has left his purple and fine linen, 
and that other rich man his " much goods laid up for 
many years,"* and Ahab his ivory palaces, and Pha- 
raoh his " treasures of Egypt," and Alexander the 
wealth of two worlds, — he has left it, and not for a 
little season, but for ever. Surely such phrases as 
these, leaving a fortune, leaving a good estate, which 



* Luke xii. 19. 



CARRY AWAY WHEN WE DIE. 



349 



arc so common in men's mouths, have a deeper signifi- 
cance than we are wont to give them ; witness for 
most solemn truths, if we would but listen to, and lay 
to heart the witness which they bear. We do, indeed, 
in this common language of ours, unconsciously set 
our seal to the words of the Psalmist, " He shall carry 
nothing away with him, when he dieth ; neither shall 
his pomp follow him. ;; 

Nor may we suppose, when we hear such words as 
these, that they are merely warnings to rich men, to 
those who have much to leave. They are warnings to 
oil men. A man may cleave to a few things as closely 
as to many, to a hut as passionately as to a palace ; 
may forget or abuse his stewardship in the dispensa- 
tion of one talent as effectually as in the dispensation 
of ten. When Christ said, " Take heed and beware 
of covetousness," He was not speaking to a select few 
among the rich and great of the earth, but to a mixed 
multitude, and one gathered mainly from the humbler 
classes of society. It is " the love of money " which is. 
u the root of all evil and all may be guilty of this 
inordinate love ; alike those who have it, and those 
who desire to have it ; those who exult in treasures 
which they have, and those who pine for treasures 
which they have not. It would be a very serious 
mistake, if warnings like the present were assumed by 
those who heard them to be addressed to one class 
alone. They are addressed to all. The inordinate 
desire of the things of this world ; the temptation to 
trust in them rather than in the living God ; to forget 
that in anything which we have here we are not pos- 



350 WHAT WE CAN, AND WHAT WE CANNOT, 

sessors in fee, but tenants-at-will, liable, therefore, to 
be turned out at any moment ; this temptation is com- 
mon to us all, being as it is the birth of that natural 
corruption, of that mind averted from God and to 
the earth, which is not one man's more than another's, 
which is every man's. And when the hour has come, 
it is as true of the beggar as of the king, that " he shall 
carry nothing away with him, when he dieth." If the 
one must leave his sceptre and his crown, the other 
must leave his staff and his wallet, — each must leave 
his all ; and who will dare to say that the beggar has not 
sometimes quitted his rags more reluctantly than the 
monarch his robes ; those who might seem to have 
almost nothing to leave in this life sometimes cleaving 
to it with a passion as intense, or, it may be, far in- 
tenser, than those who might seem to have almost 
everything to leave ? The lessons, therefore, of my 
text, and the considerations which it suggests, are for 
all, — high and low, rich and poor, great and small, 
One with another. 

Let me set before you what appear to me one or two 
of the most important of these considerations. They 
shall be thoughts of comfort and encouragement ; for 
sadly as this announcement may present itself to us at 
the first, writing vanity on so many of the toils and 
hopes and accumulations of men, yet, looked at a little 
closer, it is not so sad as it appears. 

For, in the first place, that a man shall carry away 
nothing with him when he dieth, is true only of his 
earthly goods ; which are, therefore, not goods in the 
highest and truest sense of the word. The tinsel, the 



CARRY AWAY WHEN WE DIE. 



351 



trappings, of men's outward existence, " the glories of 
their birth and state," these, indeed, must all be stripped 
off ; these must be laid aside in the vestuary of the 
grave. But these are not all. There are other gar- 
ments besides these : the garments of the soul, the 
robe of humility, the marriage vestment of faith and 
love, the raiment that has been made white in the 
blood of the Lamb ; and as many as have put on these, 
woven in the looms of heaven and with threads of 
light, shall never be found naked and unclothed. In 
like manner those that have listened to the loving 
counsel of Christ, and bought of Him gold tried in 
the fire that they may be rich, the precious treasure of 
the knowledge of Him, these never shall be poor, — 
no, not when they leave all things here. There is 
something which they can carry away with them, when 
they die ; not their worldly wealth, if they had such ; 
in regard of that, the notable words of the Italian 
proverb, " Our last garment," meaning our winding- 
sheet, " is made without pockets," are as true for them 
as for others. Of the largest worldly treasure they 
shall carry away with them not so much as the single 
penny which the blind heathen placed in the mouth of 
their dead, that with it they might pay their passage 
over the dark river that, in the dream of their imag- 
ination, encircled the shadowy kingdom of the grave. 

But all of Christ and of Christ's which they have 
made their own, all of his image, of his lineaments and 
likeness, which has been stamped upon their souls, all 
the graces which they have Avon, which have been in- 
wrought in them, which have become part and parcel 



352 WHAT WE CAN, AXD WHAT WE CANNOT, 

of themselves, and of their new nature over which the 
grave has no power, — all these shall be a possession 
for ever. Instead of having to quit these at the sum- 
mons of death, they shall then possess them by a much 
firmer, stronger hold than at any time they possessed 
them before. All is made sure for eternity. Here, 
then, is a thought of encouragement, of strong consola- 
lation, that it is only the meaner things of earth which 
lie under the bondage of corruption, on which the sen- 
tence of vanity is written, which refuse to accompany 
their owners on that long last journey which, one day 
or other, every man must make. Whatever was of 
true value and dignity ; whatever was really worth 
the winning ; whatever was akin to the divine and im- 
mortal in man ; whatever came to him from God 
through Christ, — and this includes every good and 
perfect gift, — of that nothing can rob him. He shall 
carry it away with him when he dieth, to be his riches, 
his treasure in the life eternal, as it was his riches and 
his treasure here. Surely our lesson from all this is 
contained in the words of the Saviour, " Labor not for 
the meat which perisheth ; " not, that is, first and chiefly 
for this, " but for that meat which endureth unto ever, 
lasting life." Seek to make that your own which has 
the stamp of God, and therefore the stamp of eternity, 
upon it. 

But a second consideration, and a most practical 
one, which suggests itself, is this, that, even in regard 
of these earthly things, while it is quite true that a 
man can carry nothing of them away with him iclien 
he dies, he may send much of them before him while he 



CARRY AWAY WHEN WE DIE. 



353 



lives. The Apostle Paul declares no less, when urging 
those who are rich that they be glad to distribute, he 
proposes this as a motive, that they will be thus " lay- 
ing up in store for themselves a good foundation 
against the time to come."* Observe, I beseech you, 
the boldness of St. Paul in the language which he here 
uses. He is not afraid of being called a legalist, a 
preacher of good works, instead of a preacher of faith. 
He knew that he was not so ; that he had said, in 
another place, " Other foundation can no man lay than 
that is laid, which is Jesus Christ ; " a foundation 
which we do not lay, but which is laid for us. But 
having said this, having declared it, indeed, in a thou- 
sand forms, he did not shrink from employing the 
language which I have just quoted, namely, that men, 
by large and liberal giving, should be " laying up in 
store for themselves a good foundation against the 
time to come ; " a foundation, indeed, which is only a 
good one when it rests on that other, that deeper 
foundation, which no man lays for himself, but which 
is laid for us of God, namely, the finished work and 
the perfect righteousness of Christ. We can carry 
nothing away with us, if we put off all to the last ; but 
we can send as much as we will before us, if only we 
set about it in time, and have the heart and courage 
to trust God in the matter. 

Supposing you were bound to some distant land, 
that it was no matter of choice, but of necessity, that 
you should travel thither, never to return again, and 
that, however well furnished here, there seemed no 

* 1 Tim. vi. 19. 



354 WHAT WE CAN, AND WHAT WE CANNOT, 

means of transmitting funds for your support when 
you arrived there, bills of exchange, letters of credit, 
and the like, not reaching so far ; — supposing it was 
impossible, from one cause or another, to carry these 
funds with you ; would you not, under these conditions, 
rejoice if one whom you could perfectly rely on of- 
fered and engaged that whatever you committed to 
him you should find there ; if he announced to you 
that he had channels of communication, though you 
had not ; that by help of these secret channels, what- 
ever you placed in his hands should thus reappear for 
your behoof when you needed it the most? I ask, 
would you not welcome such tidings with a lively joy ? 
Well, then, this is exactly what God says. This world 
is the land which we must leave ; where we are only 
pilgrims and strangers for a time. At our death we 
set forth on the journey which we must all take ; that 
mysterious world beyond the grave is the land to which 
we are inevitably bound. We can carry nothing with 
us there ; we can send many things before us there ; 
that is, if we have courage, courage to believe God, 
to trust in his promises, in his faithfulness, in his 
truth ; to be sure that nothing is lost which is com- 
mitted to Him ; no prayer, no alms-deed, no act of 
self-denial, no tear of penitence. He has bottles for 
these tears, books of remembrance for those deeds of 
love ; He is not unrighteous, to forget the least of 
these things that is wrought for his name's sake. 

Be rich then, my Christian brethren, toward God ; 
be rich with God. These are the only durable riches, 
the only riches which a man can keep for ever ; all 



CAERY AWAY WHEN WE DIE. 



355 



other either leave him, or he leaves them. I know 
that exhortations of this kind, especially exhortations 
to a large and liberal return to God of those things 
which He has so freely given to us, are in general ap- 
pended to sermons dedicated to some charitable object. 
It seems to me very desirable that they should be some- 
times not associated with these. Without having any 
hard thoughts of the preacher, it is easy on such oc- 
casions to persuade ourselves that he is making much 
of the duty for the special purpose before him, and 
that he would not press it so earnestly at another 
time ; or else to satisfy ourselves with a slight and 
momentary response to his appeals, and then to relapse 
into our ordinary habits of selfish expenditure, of lay- 
ing up treasures for ourselves, and not for God. 

Believe me, such casual, desultory giving, giving 
merely when we are asked, and because we are asked, 
under the stress of a momentary excitement ; instead 
of deliberately laying out our income and our expend- 
iture beforehand on a scheme which would enable us to 
give liberally and give constantly, is for the most part 
of very little worth indeed. Sum up the whole amount 
of it at the end of the year, — I trust you do keep an 
account of your charities, that you may know how 
small they are, — and what a paltry and miserable sum- 
total it will prove. On some single pleasure, on some 
single amusement, on some single superfluity, on some 
single "need-not," as our ancestors strikingly called 
it, you will very probably have spent more, perhaps 
many times more, than on God's church and on God's 
poor. 



356 WHAT WE CARRY AWAY WHEN WE DIE. 

If you desire, my Christian brethren, at all to fulfil 
God's will in regard of the earthly mammon whereof 
you are the dispensers here ; if you would not be fools 
for eternity, however wise and prudent you may be 
accounted in time, beggars in that coming world, how- 
ever rich and prosperous in this present ; make this a 
fixed resolution, and keep it, that some well-defined 
portion of your income shall be devoted to God. I 
presume not to say how much. That is a matter for 
the conscience of every man. It belongs to the free- 
dom of the gospel that each man must here be a law 
unto himself ; only beware lest this freedom become a 
snare. But having determined this proportion, do not 
go back from it. Diminish not the firstfruits of your 
hand. Increase them if you will and if you can, but 
do not diminish. I would by no means conceal, that 
such a rule as this, honestly laid down, and honestly 
carried out, as in the sight of God who is not mocked, 
will cost you something ; that it may oblige you to 
make a less figure in the world than otherwise you 
would have done, to abridge yourself of some pleasures, 
to exercise some habits of self-denial. But what is it 
we want ? Is it that our offerings shall be such as 
shall cost us nothing, as shall not interfere in the least 
with the pride of our life, as shall leave us every one 
of our indulgences untouched? I fear it is often so. 
But it is not this which God's Word demands, which 
Christ, who gave Himself for us, requires, even as He 
has a right to require, at our hands ; it is not by aid 
of such that we shall ever lay up in store a good 
foundation against the time to come. 



SERMON XXXIII. 

WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 

They shall walk with Me in white; for they are worthy. He that 
overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment. — Rev. hi. 
4,5. 

HOLY SCRIPTURE is full of promises. Eternal 
life is set out to us there in a thousand alluring 
forms, under a thousand attractive images, such as ap- 
peal to our affections, our imaginations, our hopes. We 
are not barely and coldly told that it is an infinite 
good, and then left to realize as we best can, by aid 
of our own fancies, that good to ourselves ; but the 
goodness, the glory, the beauty, the blessedness of it, 
are brought home to us by a thousand gracious as- 
sistances which God's Word itself supplies. Eternal 
life, it is to eat of the hidden manna, yea, of the tree 
of life in the midst of the Paradise of God ; it is to be 
a pillar in the temple of God that shall go out no 
more ; it is to be a citizen of the New J erusalem, the 
city which comes down out of heaven from God ; it is 
to receive at Christ's hands a crown of life ; it is to sit 
with Christ upon his throne ; or, as here in my text, it 
is to walk with Christ in white, even in the pure and 
shining garments of immortality. 

And it was most graciously ordered of God, who 

(357) 



358 



WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 



has given these Scriptures to his church, that they 
should be thus full of these glorious promises ; that 
life eternal should be thus set forth to us in all these 
alluring, winning, enticing forms, which kindle our af- 
fections, which captivate our imaginations, which draw 
our hearts. There are promises in abundance on the 
other side. The devil is a great promiser ; the world 
is a great promiser ; the flesh is a great promiser : — 
lying promisers all, liars from the beginning, who keep 
none of the promises which they make to the children 
of men ; but evermore deceive, delude, and betray 
them ; but still their mouths are full of promises. 
Satan says, Eat of the tree of knowledge of good and 
evil, and ye shall be as gods. The world, pointing to 
some of its painted toys, its gilded vanities, says, All 
these will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and wor- 
ship me. The flesh says, To-morrow shall be as to-day, 
and much more abundantly ; you shall never tire of 
my joys ; you shall never draw dry the fountains of 
my delight. 

And who that knows anything of the deceitfulness 
of his own heart but will confess the power and po- 
tency which these praises exert. We may have 
proved them false and deceivable a thousand times, 
and yet they are still able to attract and to allure, too 
often to deceive and to betray. What need, then, that 
mightier promises should be set over against these, 
more potent lures, magnets of heaven over against 
these magnets of hell. What need that against the 
false splendors of the world should be set the true 
glories of heaven, so that those other might have no 



WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 359 

glory by reason of the glory which excelleth. There- 
fore is it that there are in Scripture such exceeding 
great and precious promises, — God setting against the 
shows of earth the substances of heaven ; the gold of 
heaven against the tinsel of earth ; pleasures which 
never fade against pleasures that are but for a season ; 
crowns of life against crowns that wither in a day. 
He multiplies these, that by them we " might be par- 
takers of the divine nature, having escaped the cor- 
ruption that is in the world through lust ; * that we, 
laying hold of the promises of Him that cannot lie, 
may not be drawn aside by the promises of him who is 
a liar from the beginning, and never more a liar than 
when he promises any good to his victims and his 
slaves. 

We have here to do with one of these promises of 
Him, all whose words are true : " He that overcometh, 
the same shall be clothed in white raiment.' 7 But we 
must not so dwell upon the promise as to overlook the 
conditions of the promise. It is made to him " that 
overcometh." Overcometh what? This is not hard 
to answer. Overcometh what Christ overcame, the 
world ;f overcometh what Christ did not need to 
overcome, himself, — the pride, the malignity, the selfish- 
ness, the sensuality, the thousand forms of sin which 
are lodged in his own bosom. He who in the strength 
of God, and through the grace of his Spirit, is a con- 
queror of all these, the same, that one and not any 
other, " shall be clothed in white raiment," shall walk 
with Christ in white. 



* 2 Peter i. 4. 



f John xvi. 33. 



360 



WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 



But this walking with Christ in white, this being 
clothed in white raiment, what is the exact import of 
this wonderful promise ? It is worth our while to 
study it ; for it is the character of G-od's promises, 
the closer they are looked at, the more they are ac- 
curately examined, by so much the more rich and the 
more glorious do they appear. White, I would first 
call you to observe, is everywhere the color, so to 
speak, the livery of heaven ; and more noticeable in 
this Book than in any other ; for we read here of the 
" white stone," the " white horses," the " white robes," 
the "white cloud," the "white linen," the "white 
throne."* But not in this Book alone. It is the same, 
though not to the same extent, everywhere else. Do 
angels appear to men, and are we told any thing of 
their outward appearance, they are clothed in white : 
so the angel at the sepulchre, he is clothed, according 
to St. Mark, " in a long white garment ;"f and in St. 
Matthew, his raiment is " white as snow.":f And these 
last words lead me to observe, that the white of heaven 
is not that dull dead hue, rather the absence of color 
than anything else, which, on this poor earth of ours, 
sometimes goes by this name ; but the heavenly white 
is a shining white. The angel whom St. Matthew and 
St. Mark describe as clothed in white, is said in St. 
Luke to have been " in shining garments,"§ as that 
angel who appeared to Cornelius was clothed, "in 
bright clothing."!" Compare with these notices the 



* Rev. ii. 17, vi. 2, xix. 14, vi. 11, xiv. 14, xix. 14, xx. 21. 
fxvi. 5. Jxxviii. 3. 

§xxiv. 4. ^[Acts x. 30. 



WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 361 

several records of our Lord's transfiguration. Take, 
for instance, St. Mark's : " His raiment became shining, 
exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can 
white them."* 

What shall we understand by these shining garments 
of Christ and of the angels, and the promise of the 
same to the perfected saints in glory ? The language 
recurs too often to allow us to explain it away, or re- 
solve it into a mere figure ; while yet we cannot 
ascribe a literal fulfilment to such words ; for, as we 
all must feel sure, there can be properly no garments 
in heaven. These pertain only to the necessities, the 
humiliation, the pride, of our present existence. The 
Scriptures which speak of the white raiment of the 
saints or of the angels may best be understood by such 
an utterance as that of the Psalmist, where of God he 
says, " Thou deckest Thyself with light, as it were 
with a garment."f Light, then, is itself a garment ; 
and the spiritual, or glorified body — that, no doubt, 
and nothing else — shall be the garment of light, the 
white raiment of the saints, to which such frequent 
allusion is made. Nothing outside of them, nothing 
now to be taken up and now laid down, but the very 
bodies which they wear, — bodies in which mortality 
shall have been for ever swallowed up in life, — shall 
contain in themselves the fulfilment of this promise of 
the Lord. They too, like Him, shall then be light, and 
in them, as in Him, there shall be then no darkness at 
all ; and, in sign and token of this, — of sin overcome, 



* Mark ix. 3. 

16 



f Ps. civ. 2, Pr. B. 



362 WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 

of the very dregs of sin for ever cast out, — they, as 
He, shall clothe themselves, or rather shall have been 
clothed by Him, with light as with a garment. 

Friends and brethren, do these promises move us ? 
have they any attraction for us ? would we fain have 
these bodies of weakness and dishonor, of sin and 
death, which we bear about with us now, these bodies 
of our humiliation, transformed and transfigured into 
the likeness of Christ's body of glory ? And if we 
would, how may this be, and how shall this be attained ? 
I will endeavor to give a reply. 

And, first, while those garments of light, that vesture 
of life, is only put on in the day of the Lord Jesus, it 
is not for all this something wholly disconnected from 
that body, that investiture of the soul, which now we 
wear ; and we must above all things beware of regard- 
ing it so. This body rather is the germ and seed of 
that ; and, as the butterfly from the worm, that must 
unfold itself from this. But these present garments of 
our souls, what spots, what stains, what defilements, 
are upon them ! How little is there in them which 
gives pledge of such an issue ; how much that seems 
to give pledge of a very different issue from this. One 
thing, then, is sure — only those garments which have 
been made white in the blood of the Lamb will slww 
white upon that day. If, then, we would walk with 
Christ in white then and for evermore, the first con- 
dition for this is, that we come with a heartfelt " Woe 
is me VI with the confession, " Unclean, unclean !" to 
that Rock which was cleft for us ; to that sacred Side 
which was pierced for us ; and in the water and the 



WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 363 

blood which flowed out from thence, in the one fountain 
open for uncleanness, wash away all our guilty stains. 
And this not once, but continually ; drawing near 
again and again, that we may be partakers of that 
precious blood of sprinkling ; again and again crying, 
as those who need an ever-repeated cleansing, " Purge 
me with hyssop/' — the hyssop, that is, which has been 
dipped in the blood * — " and I shall be clean ; wash me 
and I shall be whiter than snow." Know you any- 
thing, my friends, of such a coming as this to Christ ; 
of such a washing of your garments now in the blood 
of the immaculate Lamb ? Unless you do, be sure of 
this, you will never know what it is to have those 
glorious garments of which Christ speaks in my text 
given you, and to walk with Him in his heavenly 
kingdom. They who have not purified themselves on 
the third day, on the seventh they shall not be clean ; 
that third day being this time that now is, the seventh 
the eternal Sabbath that shall be.t 

But this is not all. This is the first condition, 
but it is by no means the only one. The garments 
which have been made white in the blood of the Lamb, 
we must subsequently keep them, to the best of our 
ability, from all after spots and stains ; for Christ is 
not a minister of unrighteousness, but a minister of 
righteousness and of holiness ; He came to bless us in 
turning us away from our iniquities, to save us from 
our sins, and not to save us in our sins, which surpasses 
even his power. When I say, " to the best of our 



* Lev. xiv. 6, 7. 



f Numbers xix. 12. 



364 



WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 



ability," you must not misunderstand me. I do not 
mean to the best of our natural ability ; for in spirit- 
ual things, in the things of God, natural ability is no 
ability at all. I refer to the ability which comes di- 
rectly from Him, which is his immediate gift and 
grace ; and I say that to the best of this our ability, 
that is, by stirring up his gift which is in us, we must 
endeavor to keep our garments — in other words, to 
keep ourselves — unspotted from the world. See what 
is said in the verse immediately preceding my text : 
" Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not 
defiled their garments ;" and then follow the words, 
" and they shall walk with Me in white : for they are 
worthy." Note who they are that shall walk with 
Him in white. Such as " have not defiled their gar- 
ments," such as have hated the garments spotted by 
the flesh. And why these ? " For they are worthy." 
Scripture does not shrink from this language, " they are 
worthy," and therefore neither should we. There is a 
worthiness in God's saints, a meetness or fitness for the 
inheritance of the saints in light : — though that wor- 
thiness is itself of God's free giving, would never have 
been at all unless He had implanted it ; and not 
merely of his giving, but also of his most gracious al- 
lowing, in that for Christ's sake, and having respect 
• to his perfect obedience, God allows that which of 
itself would not for an instant have endured his search- 
ing gaze. I am afraid we sometimes shrink from this 
language, from dwelling on words like these, " they 
shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy" not, 
as perhaps we fancy, out of any jealousy for God's 



WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 



365 



honor, not out of any fear lest the entire freeness of 
the salvation which is by Christ Jesus should be called 
into question, and some other merits mingled with His ; 
but because declarations like these imply that there 
must be an earnest watching against sin on our part, a 
striving to cleanse ourselves from all impurities of flesh 
and spirit, that without holiness no man shall see God. 
But so it is. There are some that will walk with 
Christ in white, and it is those who are worthy. Are 
you candidates for these garments of light? You 
hear, not from my lips, but from the lips of the Lord, 
the sole conditions on which they may be yours. 

And this holiness, — seek it, I would beseech you, not 
at its outward circumference, but in its central point, 
in Christ ; let Him dwell in your hearts ; let Christ be 
in you, the hope of Glory. What a phrase of inex- 
haustible wonder is that of the Apostle, " Christ in 
you, the hope of glory ; 7;-x " and how directly does it bear 
on this very matter which has occupied us to-day. If 
these white garments indicate the future glorification of 
the bodies of God's saints, how can those bodies pass 
through this transcendent change, how can they be 
transmuted and glorified, except through the mighty 
power of Christ, of Christ dwelling in them, subduing 
all things to Himself, and Himself effecting this mar- 
vellous transformation? Not else assuredly. Thus 
Christ in us is our " hope of glory." He is the pledge 
of a glory that shall be ; a glory that is hidden now, 
bat shall be manifest hereafter ; according to that 



* Col. 1. 27. 



366 WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 

other word of St. Paul in the same Epistle, " When 
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also 
appear with Him in glory."* The faith, the love, the 
truth, the purity, which were in God's saints, which 
Christ by his Spirit had wrought in them, but which 
were all more or less concealed from the eyes of others, 
yea, and from their own, by the covering of the flesh, 
the earthen vessel in which this treasure was con- 
tained, shall then burst through the covering which 
concealed them ; shall then flash forth, as Gideon's 
lamps flashed forth when the pitchers which had hid 
them hitherto were broken.f That which was before 
inward shall in that day of manifestation become also 
outward, visible, seen of all men. " Then shall the 
righteous shine forth ;" — observe that " shine forth," 
for it is exactly that which I would press upon you ; — 
they, many of them God's hidden ones till that day, 
shall " then shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of 
their Father," living epistles of Christ, shut once, but 
opened now, and to be read of all men. Christ in 
you, Christ in you now, He is the one hope, the one 
pledge, of such a glory to be revealed in you hereaf- 
ter ; so, and so only, will you ever walk with Him in 
white. 

And if not in white, how else ? and if not with Him, 
with whom ? Ah, brethren, there is a sadder, a stern- 
er side of this truth of my text, and I must not, I 
dare not, wholly overlook or omit it. Those who 
have not overcome the world, those who have defiled 



« Col. iii. 4. 



f Judges vii. 19. 



WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 367 

their garments, and never sought to cleanse them again, 
in what shall they be clothed ? 

They also shall be clothed with their bodies, for 
there is a resurrection of condemnation no less than a 
resurrection of life ; but those bodies, dark and not 
luminous, ugly and not beautiful, shameful and not 
glorious, food for the undying worm, and fuel for the 
unquenchable fire ; for they are bodies which shall 
have stamped and written upon them, to be read of 
men, to be read of angels, the hideous records of all 
the evil which was done in them, which was done by 
them. Would you willingly be clothed with such 
bodies as these? Would you rise, as the prophet 
Daniel declares to us some will rise, to shame and 
everlasting contempt ; not one evil thing which you 
have ever thought, or spoken, or done, but, having left 
its mark, its stamp, its scar, its cicatrice behind, then 
visible to every eye ? I know you would not. Would 
you be content to have the polluted garment of sinful 
flesh cleaving to you for evermore, making you one pol- 
lution ? I know you would not. And yet I say to you^ 
(would that one might leave it unsaid, would that it 
were not to say I) that if you, if any of you here, is a 
lover of pleasures rather than a lover of God, choos- 
ing friendship with the world and enmity with God, 
walking after the flesh and not after the Spirit • much 
more, if you are allowing yourself in any open, in any 
secret sin, which plainly separates you from Christ 
and the benefits of his salvation, — you are in fact 
choosing all this, choosing this shame, this dishonor, 
this contempt, this scorn, this tribulation, this anguish ; 



368 WALKING WITH CHRIST IN WHITE. 

when you might have chosen glory, honor, immortality, 
to stand before the throne, to see his face who sits up- 
on it, to have his name written in your forehead, to 
walk with Christ in those white and shining garments 
which saints and angels wear. 



THE END. 



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Poetical Works of Fitz-Greene Halleck. New and only 

Complete Edition, containing several New Poems, together with many 
now first collected. 1 vol., 12mo. Price SI 00. 

Simms' Poetical Works. Poems: Descriptive, Drama- 
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Portrait on steel. 2 vols., 12mo, cloth. Price $2 50. 

Lyra, and other Poems. By Alice Caret. 1 vol., 

12ino, cloth. Price 75 cents. 

The Poetical Works of W. H C. Hosmer. Now first 

collected. With a Portrait on steel. 2 vols., 12mo. Price $2 00. 

Scottish Songs, Ballads, and Poems. By Hew Ainslie, 

author of "The Ingleside," "On with the Tar.-n,' "Rover of Loch- 
Ryan," &c, &c. 1 vol., 12mo. Price SI 00. 

Die Poets and Poetry of Ireland. 1 vol., Svo, with 

Plates. Edited by Dr. R. Sheltox Mackenzie. [In Press.] 

Trench's Poems. Poems: By R. C. Trench, P. D. author 

of " The Study of Words," &e. 12mo, cloth. Price SI 00. 



2 REDFl ELD'S PUBLICATIONS. — HISTORY AN '.I BIOGRAPHY. 



HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 

Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs. , By Johis Kenkiok, 

M. A. In 2 vols., 12mo. Price $2 50. 

Newman's Regal Rome. An Introduction to Roman 
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College, London. 12mo, cloth. Price 63 cents. 

The Catacombs of Rome, as Illustrating the Church of 

the First Three Centuries. By the Right Rev. W. Ingraham Kip, D. D., 
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Rome," " Early Conflicts of Christianity," &c, &c. With over 100 Illus- 
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The History of the Crusades. By Joseph Francois 
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Napoleon in Exile ; or, a Voice from St. Helena. Being 

the Opinions and Reflections of Napoleon, on the most important Events 
in his Life and Government, in his own words. By Barry E. 'Mb aba, 
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of Pelaroche, and a view of St. Helena, both beautifully engraved on steel. 
2 vols., 12mo, cloth. Price $2 00. 

Jomini's Campaign of Waterloo. The Political and 

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12mo, cloth. Price 75 cents. 

Napier's Peninsular War. History of the War in the 
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Major Gen. Napier, C. B. Complete in I vol., 8vo. Price $2 50. 

The History of the War in the Peninsula. By Major Gen 

Sir W. F. P. Napier, from the author's last revised edition, with fifty-five 
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Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Yalley, 

With the Original Narratives of Marquette, Allouez, Membre, Hennepin, 
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the Original Map of Marquette. 1 vol., 8vo, cloth, antique. Price $2. 

Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of Ameri- 
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Las Cases' Napoleon. Memoirs of the Life, Exile, and 
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calf or morccco extra, $8 0U. 



hEDF! ELD'S PUBLICATIONS. — HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 3 



Life of the Rt. Hon. John Philpot Curran. By his Son, 

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kenzie, and a Portrait on Steel. 12mo, cloth. Price $1 25. 

Sketches of the Irish Bar. By the Bight Hon. Richard 
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Mackenzie. Fourth Edition. In 2 vols. Price S2 00. 

Harrington's Sketches. Personal Sketches of his Own 

Time. B - Sir Jonah Barring-tost, Judge of the High Court of 

Admiralty in Ireland; with Illustrations by Darley Third Edition. 
12mo, cloth. Price $1 25. 

Moore's Life of Sheridan. Memoirs of the Life of the 

Et. Hon Eichard Bnnsley Sheridan. By Thomas Moore ; with Por* 
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Men of the Time, or Sketches of Living Rotables, Au- 
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Lorenzo Benoni ; or, Passages in the Life of an Italian. 

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Hie Workingman's Way 'n the "World. Being the Au- 
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Classic and Historic Portraits. By James Bkuce. 

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Ladies of the Covenant. Memoirs of Distinguished 

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Tom Moore's Suppressed Letters. Notes from the Let- 

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steel. 12mo, cloth. Price $1 50. 

Fifty Tears in Both Hemispheres ; or, Reminiscences of 
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Men and Women of the Eighteenth Century. By 

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Philosophers and Actresses. By Arsene Hotjssaye. 
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Life of the Honoraule TTilliam H. Seward, with Selec- 
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4 RHUFIELD'S P JBLICATIONS HISTORY ASD EIOGI1AFH Y 



The History of Texas, from its Settlement in 1685 to its 
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$5 00. Sheep $5. 50. 

The History of Louisiana — Spanish Domination. By 
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The History of Louisiana — French Domination. Bj 
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A Memorial of Horatio Gre enough, consisting of a 
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Henry T. Tuckerman, Author of " Sicily, a Pilgrimage," " A Month 
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The Private Life of an Eastern King. By a member of the 

Household of his Late Majesty, Nussir-u-deen, King of Oude. 12mo, 
cloth. Price 75 cents. 

Doran's Queens of England. The Queens of England, of 

the House of Hanover. By Dr. Doran, Author of " Table Traits," 
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Autobiography of a Female Slave. 12mo, cloth. Price 
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Wit and Wisdom of the Rev. Sydney Smith. Being Selec- 
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mo, cloth. Price 1 25. 

Sinai and Palestine, in connection with their History, by j 

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